Category: BeachGirl04 Portfolio

Reflective- beachgirl04

Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

I was not an inexperienced writer coming into Composition II but it felt as if I was because of the new style of writing that was introduced in this course. My writing in the beginning of the course was far from what it needed to be as my Professor challenged us a great amount, which I am thankful for. I was given many opportunities to ask for feedback on each assignment assigned and revise after the feedback was given. I took advantage of all of those opportunities especially on my Rebuttal Argument. I was confused by this argument but then I went ahead and did it and did not really use any factual evidence of those who refuted that water is the most beneficial liquid to keep you hydrated. My professor commented on my original post the day I posted it and after many comments I was able to research more and change my rebuttal into actually refuting what I needed to as well as fixing style errors.

 

Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically, and that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

Each and every class meeting of this semester required critical thinking each second of the class. Professor Hodges stated during one of our classes that “we don’t have a thought in our heads,” my mind was puzzled. We then were assigned the assigned of “Stone Money”. Professor Hodges always forced us to be ready to have a counterintuitive mindset rather than any other type. The “Stone Money” assignment forced me to think in a manner I never had before. I listened to the NPR broadcast multiple different times refusing to believe that “money is fiction”, I had no clue how all the money I have ever saved up was not a real number. I then went ahead to read about Yap’s monetary system and the Bitcoin and it started to make more sense to me that money could be imagined instead of being real. It took me three different sources as well as an explanation from Professor Hodges to understand that the island of Yap’s system is reflected in our own system today.

Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

There is no better example of this than the Safer Sawsassignment. There was so many different audiences for this argument and the audience is who determined the argument that I was making. I was required to analyze multiple different sources and understand why each source felt a different way towards the issue. Each of the different sources provided portrayed their arguments in different forms such as videos, articles, newsletters which made me realize how multifaceted all arguments are. Along with this, Professor Hodges performed a lecture that “ a black sneaker is not the opposite of a white sneaker, because there is no opposite of a sneaker,” (Hodges lecture.) I now always consider who my audience will be and the questions my readers may come up with so that I answer them before being asked.

 

Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

The visual rhetoric assignment that our Professor assigned to us was to watch a 30 second video clip but we were not allowed to have the sound on. We were instructed to analyze the illustrations second by second of the video and include details, the meaning of the illustration presented, and to come up with any questions or thoughts about the illustration. At first, I just wrote down what I saw and thought it was enough. However, after the first time I viewed the video and wrote down details I did not put any additional thoughts or question into my responses. I looked deeper into each which forced me to be engaged with the visual work that I was viewing. I was shocked on how much meaning laid behind each second of the video. The more time I spent on this video, the more detail, meaning and questions I pulled out of it.

Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

As students growing up we have always been told “not to plagiarize, always cite, and to use reference pages”. It is so important to me to cite the work that I take from other authors because it is by no means my words or anything close to my words and the authors of the articles and websites I use deserve to get the recognition. Throughout the semester, I have cited sources in each of the assignments I have turned in even if I only took one short sentence from the article. All of the sources that I have used are in my White Paper. My white paper consists of all of the sources I came across while researching my topic, some I did not use but the rest I did. The white paper helped me organize my sources so when I had to cite them in my writing, they were easy to find.

 

 

Rebuttal Rewrite- beachgirl04

Dehydration; there’s a lot more to it

We give little thought to water, the fluid that preserves our health, maintains our body temperature, prevents headaches, and most importantly, keeps us hydrated.Many consider water to be the only appropriate beverage for hydrating while some use other beverages to achieve similar benefits. According to, The US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health water is essential for life. It was also stated that, It is not always negative when one does not drink only water, studies show that if an individual were to pick up a soda or coffee it may be advantageous because it allows water losses to be replaced before thirst-producing dehydration takes place. Unfortunately, there are also some disadvantages. Drinking fluids other than water can contribute to an intake of caloric nutrients in excess of requirements, or in alcohol consumption that in some people may insidiously bring about dependence .Overwhelming evidence discusses how important it is to drink water on a regular basis because most times anything other than water has negative side effects.

Even though water is the easiest type of drink to get no matter what and has many positive benefits there are still people who refuse to believe that it is the best fluid to hydrate us at all times. But R.L. Calderon in the Food and Chemical Toxicology warns individuals that there are a number of chemical contaminants identified in drinking water. Some people swear on sports drinks hydrating our bodies faster than water because osmolality is the concentration of dissolved particles in a fluid. Sports drinks contain dissolved minerals (sodium, etc.) and carbohydrates, whereas water doesn’t, so water doesn’t reach the bloodstream as quickly. In the article Which Fluid Hydrates Best: Water or a Sports Drink? written by Matt Fitzgerald there was a study done at San Antonio Catholic University in Spain that compared two drinks one having more grams and carbohydrates than the other and the result was that the drink with more carbs and grams hydrate individuals better  We could take it as the one drink was similar to water because there was very little grams and carbohydrates it in there.

The study that one must drink eight, eight ounce glasses of specifically just water daily in order to stay hydrated has been fought against. However, a recent study found that no scientific studies were found in support of 8 x 8. The long-lasting idea that anything other than water such as iced tea, coffee, tea, and sodas dehydrate us and to stay away from them.  This is supported by published studies showing that caffeinated drinks (and, to a lesser extent, mild alcoholic beverages like beer in moderation) may indeed be counted toward the daily total, as well as by the large body of published experiments that attest to the precision and effectiveness of the osmoregulatory system for maintaining water balance (Valtin, 283). With that being said, it shows that maybe 8 ounces of just water are not needed daily in order to keep an individual hydrated and without those 8 ounces a person will not become ill or not have negative side effects. It also brings forth something that not many people know and that is that all of those caffeinated drinks such as iced tea, coffee, and soda can be counted towards the total of how much fluid one consumes daily that contributes to hydration.

When it comes to achieving any goal there are always strategies to do so. For example, in order to be hydrated each day people set strategies such as drinking a certain amount of water by this time, the next amount of water 3 hours later and so on so that they can make sure they are hydrated each day and drinking the amount of water that their body requires. Some beg to differ, for example there was an experiment done to examine the effect of various combinations of beverages on hydration status in healthy living males. The men consumed different combination of beverages including beverages that were carbonated, caffeinated caloric, non-caloric and coffee. Before this took place body weight, urine and blood were measured as well as afterwards. There was no significant differences in the effect of various combination of beverages on hydration status of healthy adult males. Advising people to disregard caffeinated beverages as part of the daily fluid intake is not substantiated by the results of this study. The across-treatment weight loss observed, when combined with data on fluid-disease relationships, suggests that optimal fluid intake may be higher than common recommendations. Further research is needed to confirm these results and to explore optimal fluid intake for healthy individuals (Grandjean, 591-600). This is another counterargument to my thesis that drinking only water is the key to staying hydrated each day. Since there was no significant difference in the males being studied who were drinking all different types of fluid compared to the ones who were just drinking water, it makes us question what are these different fluids doing to our internal organs that need water each day? That study disagrees with those individuals who come up with hydration strategies.

Within this argument, sports and strenuous activity have been important because hydration is even more essential to those individuals compared to others because dehydration can affect their performance. The main aim or aims of sports drink consumption do vary according to the exercise situation. Sports drinks are likely to be used for one or more of the following: to stimulate rapid fluid absorption, to supply carbohydrate as a substrate for use during exercise, to speed re- hydration, to reduce the physiological stress of exercise, and to promote recovery after exercise. Water is not the optimum fluid for ingestion during endurance exercise, and there is compelling evidence that drinks containing added substrate and electrolytes are more effective. Increasing the carbohydrate content of drinks will increase the amount of fuel which can be supplied, but will tend to decrease the rate at which water can be made available. (Shirreffs, 25-28). Taken from that, water is not the best drink for athletes to drink during their strenuous activity like it always has been thought of, there must be other fluids that they incorporate in order to keep their performance up because if not their body can shut down and not perform to the best of their ability.

There is simply no way that anyone can avoid drinking water completely and still live a healthy lifestyle. There may be some days that one does not need to drink as much water as another day and can consume the other beverages such as soda, coffee, or alcoholic beverages but those fluids need to be combined with the consumption of water. Dehydration will always be as bad as it is made out to be because one’s body needs water for proper functioning. Dehydration may affect some worse than it affects others, however it will never be positive.

References

  1. Calderon  R.L., (2000). “The epidemiology of chemical contaminants of drinking water”.Food and Chemical Toxicology. 38(1), S13-20.
  2.  Fitzgerald M. (2018) “Which Fluid Hydrates Us Better: Water or a Sports Drink?”

3. Grandjean AC, Reimers KJ, Bannick KE, Haven MC. The effect of caffeinated, non-caffeinated, caloric and non-caloric beverages on hydration. J Am Coll Nutr. 2000;19(5):591–600.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Popkin, B. M., D’Anci, K. E., & Rosenberg, I. H. (2010). Water, hydration, and health. Nutrition reviews, 68(8), 439-58.

5. Shirreffs SM. The optimal sports drink. Schweizerische zeitschrift fur sportmedizin und sporttraumatologie. 2003;51(1):25–30. Google Scholar

6. Valtin H. “Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8× 8”? Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2002;283(5):R993–1004.PubMedGoogle Scholar

 

 

Definition Rewrite- beachgirl04

It is constant that as humans we are being told the importance of drinking water however we really do not know what would happen to our bodies with no water. There could be so many different meanings behind the word “dehydration”. As stated from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Human’s bodies need water, it is essential for life. Without water humans can survive only for days because water compromises 75% body weight in infants to 55% in elderly and is extremely important for cellular homeostasis. Water intake effects health, energy, weight, and human performance and functioning (Popkin, D’Anci, Rosenberg, 439-458).

Dehydration has always been thought of as an unpleasant occurrence that individuals experience. There are hydration tests that athletes take part in because of how bad dehydration is for them specifically. Dehydration reduces athletic performance and also puts athletes at risk for bad injuries and at times death. For athletes, it is crucial to stay hydrated because it will affect their performance tremendously. Monitoring hydration has significant value in maximizing performance during training and competition (Oppliger, 959-971). We know that drinking water is key for athletes because it affects how they play and without hydration could cause injuries but have we ever wondered what water is doing that causes athletes bodies to need it so badly. It is a given that athletes sweat during exercise and it is not uncommon for athletes to lose 6–10% of body weight in sweat loss (Popkin, D’Anci, Rosenberg, 439-458).  Dehydration can occur before exercise (hypo-hydration) or it can develop during exercise (exercise induced dehydration). Being involved in sports is when we hear most often that it is important to always drink water before and after practice. That is because water is what helps regulate our body temperature and allow our muscles to contract, also our body keeps a normal body temperature by sweating out water which occurs during exercise.

In contrast to athletes being dehydrated and getting injured as a result of that there is also such thing as overhydrating. Over-hydration normally occurs to those who are involved in exercise that last longer than three hours, that is because the amount of sweat increased which causes the athlete to not have enough sodium in their blood stream. However, excessive overdrinking should be avoided because it can also compromise physical performance and health (Casa, 212). In the past, there have been examples of individuals whose blood sodium falls to a low level and their brain swells, which can result in seizures, coma, and death. When individuals are not aware of the proper amount of water to drink it is not efficient to just keep drinking.The amount of water an athlete should drink depends on their volume of sweat and the sodium concentration of their sweat, both of which can vary depending on aerobic fitness, exercise intensity and ambient temperature(SportMedBC).

There are constant concerns with athletes and how much water they should be drinking or not drinking. However, hydration is still important for everyone else in the world. If we were outside at a three-day festival and did not have enough water in our system, would we would pass out? Would our brain dry out? Would our body shut down? Dehydration has so many effects on our body that are not all good but somehow not all bad. Dehydration does cause an increase in the concentration of body fluids, changes in the organ masses, evaporative water loss diminished and causes water reabsorption to increase. Dehydration challenges the water balance and also decreases the water flux (Anderson, 313). Dehydration will not always affect the body that others can physically see and tell us that we are dehydrated but the insides of the body start to experience difficulty. Bodies are not able to function as well without having enough water in their system. Individuals may feel like they are going to pass out because their blood volume decreases and that cause blood pressure to drop which leads to not having enough blood and oxygen in our brain which can also force one to feel like they are going to pass out.

In order to not become dehydrated, one needs to be aware of how to stay hydrated and the process that it takes to have enough water in our system in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. At the end of the day being dehydrated is extremely bad for humans. Depending on the lifestyle that each individual lives it is important that we must drink at least half of our body weight in ounces of water daily and that is because our bodies are made up of 55-75% water and we do in fact lose water daily by breathing. Some do not enjoy drinking plain old water, it is a suggestion to eat certain foods that we can get water from; the best source is fruits and veggies (McArthur).

Staying hydrated is not something that one can force on anyone, it must be something that someone forces on themselves. Being dehydrated will not cause death, it does in fact have an impact on something as important as one’s cognitive performance, kidneys, heart function and skin (Popkin, D’Anci, Rosenberg, 439-458). The constant instruction to drink water and stay hydrated when we are going to be outside for long hours or are going to participate in exercise will always be important. Water has such an important role in one’s health it is essential to the survival of humans.

 

References

“Are you drinking enough water?” 2016, Jun 10. The Spectrum.

“Hydration Testing of Athletes” Springerlink. December 2002.

“Hyponatemia or Overhydration- Who is at Risk? “ SportMedbc. 2017.

“Not Good, but Not All Bad: Dehydration Effects on Body Fluids, Organ Masses, and Water Flux through the Skin of Rhinella schneideri (Amphibia, Bufonidae)” . The University of Chicago Press Journals. 3 January 2017.

Popkin B. M., D’Anci, K. E., Rosenberg I. H. (2010.) “Water, Hydration and Health.”US National Library of Medicine National Insititutes of Health. 68(8), 439-458.

Research- beachgirl04

Dehydration; there’s a lot more to it

Water is an essential nutrient that our bodies has always needed and will always need. Without it life cannot be experienced in a healthy way, if at all. People do not realize the importance of water and its effect on the major organs of our body. We give little thought to water, the fluid that preserves our health, maintains our body temperature, prevents headaches, and most importantly, keeps us hydrated daily.Many consider water to be the only appropriate beverage for hydrating while some use other beverages to achieve similar benefits. According to, The US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health water is essential for life. Not only is hydration emphasized but so is the awfulness of dehydration that we all are trying to avoid. It is not an easy process to come up with techniques to stay hydrated in this day and age with so many different other beverage options to choose from. Staying hydrated does not mean to chug water for hours each day, it may not mean to limit yourself only to water, however there are many different meanings behind staying hydrated in order to avoid the monstrosity of dehydration.

It is constant that as humans we are being told the importance of drinking water however we really do not know what would happen to our bodies with no water. In the article from the Journal of Athletic Training “Exercise in the Heat. I. Fundamentals of Thermal Physiology, Performance, Implications, and Dehydration” it states that the human body is composed of about 65% water, separated into extracellular and intracellular fluid. From that, if at one point of the day our body does not have 65% water does that result in the awful effects of dehydration? There could be so many different meanings behind the word “dehydration”. Dehydration is a serious health issue that so many people deal with and it comes from our body not having enough water in it. Some of the major aspects of our lives that water intake has an impact on are physical performance, cognitive performance, delirium, gastrointestinal function, kidney function, heart function and hemodynamic response, headaches, skin, and chronic diseases all found from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health article “Water, Hydration and Health.” Also found from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health article was that when one does not have water in their systems humans can survive only for days because water compromises 75% body weight in infants to 55% in elderly and is extremely important for cellular homeostasis. Water intake effects health, energy, weight, and human performance and functioning.

Many individuals wisely drink water to avoid dehydration. But they do so without knowing what happens to a dehydrated body or whether water is the best preventative. Dehydrated bodies don’t necessarily lose consciousness from a lack of water, but the health consequences are serious nonetheless. Inside the bodies of athletes doing strenuous exercise—or even couch potatoes clicking the remote—fluid lack can permit dangerous body temperature changes or disregulate blood flow to vital organs and the brain. There’s no excuse to risk ill-health when drinking, on average, eight 8-ounce glasses of liquid every day can prevent it.

Dehydration has always been thought of as an unpleasant occurrence that individuals experience. When hydration comes to mind it is particular to think of athletes. Athletes are required to take part in hydration tests because of its significance. Dehydration reduces athletic performance and also puts athletes at risk for bad injuries and at times death. According to Robert Oppliger in Sports Medicine the monitoring hydration has significant value in maximizing performance during training and competition We know that drinking water is key for athletes because it affects how they perform and not being hydrated could result in injuries but have we ever wondered what water is doing that causes athletes bodies to crave it so badly. It is a given that athletes sweat during exercise and it is not uncommon for athletes to lose 6–10% of body weight in sweat loss stated from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. (Dehydration can occur before exercise (hypo-hydration) or it can develop during exercise (exercise induced dehydration). Being involved in sports is when we hear most often that it is important to always drink water before and after practice. That is because water is what helps regulate our body temperature, allows our muscles to contract, also our body keeps a normal body temperature by sweating out water which occurs throughout exercise. Meanwhile, body fluid balance is controlled by both physiological and behavioral actions. However, when there is lack of fluid availability, exposure to extreme environments, or illness, inability to maintain fluid balance can seriously jeopardize health and the ability to perform. The terms euhydration, hypohydration, and hyperhydration will be used. According to the Wilderness Medicine Textbook, Euhydration defines a normal, narrow fluctuation in body water content, whereas the terms hypohydration and hyperhydration define, respectively, a general deficit (hypohydration) and surfeit (hyperhydration) in body water content beyond normal.

In contrast to athletes being dehydrated and having injuries as a result of dehydration there is also such thing as overhydrating. Over-hydration normally occurs to those who are involved in exercise that last longer than three hours, that is because the amount of sweat increased causes the athlete to not have enough sodium in their blood stream. However according to Casa from the Journal of Athletic Training, excessive overdrinking should be avoided because it can also compromise physical performance and health. In the past, there have been instances that individuals whose blood sodium falls to a low level and their brain swells, which can result in seizures, coma, and death. Over-hydration is not referred to as often as hydration or dehydration because it is not as common.  As stated in the article, Hemodynamic response to submaximal exercise after dehydration and rehydration in high school wrestlers there was a study was done on high school student athletes who lost weight by restricting fluids because they were required to do so. Cardiac output, heart rate, stoke volume, and oxygen difference were measured in 16 high school wrestlers during exercise at normal weight, after a four or five percent weight loss, and following one hour of rehydration. Weight losses were accomplished over 48 hours by fluid and food restriction as well as intermittent exercise. It was concluded that despite a short rehydration period, the cardiovascular dynamics of these high school wrestlers rapidly returned to normal during moderately heavy work because of the small plasma changes that accompanied the 48-hour weight loss. When individuals are not aware of the proper amount of water to drink it is not efficient to intoxicate the body with water. As found on the SportMedbc website in the article “Hyponatremia or overhydration- who is at risk?,” the amount of water an athlete should drink depends on their volume of sweat and the sodium concentration of their sweat, both of which can vary depending on aerobic fitness, exercise intensity and ambient temperature. The constant concerns regarding athletes being hydrated or dehydrated will never disappear.

However, hydration is still important for everyone else in the world. Overwhelming evidence discusses how important it is to drink water on a regular basis because most times anything other than water has negative side effects.  If we were outside at a three-day festival and did not have enough water in our system, would we would pass out? Would our brain dry out? Would our body shut down? Dehydration has many effects on our body that are not all positive but somehow not all negative. Dehydration: the insides of our bodies change, our brain changes, so many different parts of our body are affected greatly when we are dehydrated. Dehydration can occur at any point in time, it is likely to occur during exercise or strenuous activity but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen on an everyday basis to just any human being. As found on the University of Chicago Press Journal in the article “Physiological and Biochemical Zoology”, Dehydration also causes an increase in the concentration of body fluids, changes in the organ masses, evaporative water loss diminished and causes water reabsorption to increase. Dehydration challenges the water balance and also decreases the water flux. Dehydration will not always affect the body that others can physically see but the insides of the body start to experience difficulty. Bodies are not able to function as well without having enough water in their system. Individuals may feel like they are going to pass out because their blood volume decreases and that causes blood pressure to drop which then leads to not having enough blood and oxygen in the brain which can also force one to experience those feelings.

Even though water is the easiest type of drink to get no matter what and has many positive benefits there are still people who refuse to believe that it is the best fluid to hydrate us at all times. But R.L. Calderon in the Food and Chemical Toxicology warns individuals that there are a number of chemical contaminants identified in drinking water. Some people swear on sports drinks hydrating our bodies faster than water because osmolality is the concentration of dissolved particles in a fluid. Sports drinks contain dissolved minerals (sodium, etc.) and carbohydrates, whereas water doesn’t, so water doesn’t reach the bloodstream as quickly. According to Active.com “Which Fluid Hydrates Best: Water or a Sports Drink?,” there was a study done at San Antonio Catholic University in Spain that compared two drinks one having more grams and carbohydrates than the other and the result was that the drink with more carbs and grams hydrate individuals better We could take it as the one drink was similar to water because there was very little grams and carbohydrates present. Sports drinks are likely to be used for one or more of the following: to stimulate rapid fluid absorption, to supply carbohydrate as a substrate for use during exercise, to speed re- hydration, to reduce the physiological stress of exercise, and to promote recovery after exercise. Similar to that study found in the article “The optimal sports drink,” water is not the optimum fluid for ingestion during endurance exercise, and there is compelling evidence that drinks containing added substrate and electrolytes are more effective. Increasing the carbohydrate content of drinks will increase the amount of fuel which can be supplied, but will tend to decrease the rate at which water can be made available Taken from that, water is not the best drink for athletes to drink during their strenuous activity like it always has been thought of, there must be other fluids that they incorporate in order to keep their performance up because if not their body can shut down and not perform to the best of their ability.  The long-lasting idea that anything other than water such as iced tea, coffee, tea, and sodas dehydrate us and to stay away from them. It is not always negative when one does not drink only water, studies show in “Water, Hydration and Health” that if an individual were to pick up a soda or coffee it may be advantageous because it allows water losses to be replaced before thirst-producing dehydration takes place.  This is also supported by published studies in the American Journal of Physiology showing that caffeinated drinks (and, to a lesser extent, mild alcoholic beverages like beer in moderation) may indeed be counted toward the daily total of the 8×8, as well as by the large body of published experiments that attest to the precision and effectiveness of the osmoregulatory system for maintaining water balance With that being said, it shows that maybe 8 ounces of just water are not needed daily in order to keep an individual hydrated and without those 8 ounces a person will not become ill or not have negative side effects. It also brings forth something that not many people know and that is that all of those caffeinated drinks such as iced tea, coffee, and soda can be counted towards the total of how much fluid one consumes daily that contributes to hydration.

Below is findings from the article “Are you Drinking Enough Water” from the Spectrum on different foods that people eat in order to stay hydrated.

  • Cucumbers–96 percent water
  • Radishes–95 percent water
  • Tomatoes—94 percent water
  • Bell peppers–91 percent water
  • Watermelon–91 Percent water
  • Strawberries–90 percent water
  • Cantaloupe–90 percent water
  • Raspberries–85 percent water
  • Apples –80 percent water
  • Grapes–80 percent water

Those are just a few. There are other ways to get hydrated too. Some other options might be:

  • Infused water
  • Coconut water
  • Chicken or vegetable broth or soups
  • Applesauce

Studying this group of foods it is water intake it is just in different form instead of just drinking the liquid from a bottle of cup.

In order to not become dehydrated, one needs to be aware of how to stay hydrated and the process that it takes to have enough water in our system in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. When it comes to achieving any goal there are always strategies to do so. For example, in order to be hydrated each day people set strategies such as drinking a certain amount of water by this time, the next amount of water 3 hours later and so on so that they can make sure they are hydrated each day and drinking the amount of water that their body requires.It is critical to know that hydration does indeed take time, it will not happen from taking a sip of water every other hour.  At the end of the day being dehydrated is extremely bad for humans. It is unbelievable how many individuals suffer from dehydration. As McArthur stated from the Spectrum, depending on the lifestyle that each individual lives it is important that we must drink at least half of our body weight in ounces of water daily and that is because our bodies are made up of 55-75% water and we do in fact lose water daily by breathing. Some do not enjoy drinking plain old water, it is a suggestion to eat certain foods that we can get water from; the best source is fruits and veggies. This may be news to some but it is another alternative way for those who refuse to drink straight water all of the time to get themselves hydrated.

Staying hydrated is not something that one can force on anyone, it must be something that one forces on themselves. Being dehydrated will not cause death, it does in fact have an impact on something as important as one’s cognitive performance, kidneys, heart function and skin found from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. There is simply no way that anyone can avoid drinking water completely and still live a healthy lifestyle. There may be some days that one does not need to drink as much water as another day and can consume the other beverages such as soda, coffee, or alcoholic beverages but those fluids need to be combined with the consumption of water. Dehydration will always be as bad as it is made out to be because one’s body needs water for proper functioning. Dehydration may affect some worse than it affects others, however it will never be positive. Water has such an important role in one’s health it is essential to the survival of humans.

 

References

“Are you drinking enough water?” 2016, Jun 10. The Spectrum.

“Hydration Testing of Athletes” Springerlink. December 2002.

“Hyponatemia or Overhydration- Who is at Risk? “ SportMedbc. 2017.

“Not Good, but Not All Bad: Dehydration Effects on Body Fluids, Organ Masses, and Water Flux through the Skin of Rhinella schneideri (Amphibia, Bufonidae)” . The University of Chicago Press Journals. 3 January 2017.

Popkin B. M., D’Anci, K. E., Rosenberg I. H. (2010.) “Water, Hydration and Health.”US National Library of Medicine National Insititutes of Health. 68(8), 439-458.

Dehydration and Rehydration. Book Chapter- Wilderness Medicine Textbook. 2012. Retrieved from http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a559016.pdf

Exercise in the Heat. I. Fundamentals of Thermal Physiology, Performance Implication, and Dehydration. Journal of Athletic Training. (1999.) Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322918/pdf/jathtrain00007-0030.pdf.

Hemodynamic response to submaximal exercise after dehydration and rehydration in high school wrestlers. 1 Jan 1977. Retrieved from https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/593078.

Shirreffs SM. The optimal sports drink. Schweizerische zeitschrift fur sportmedizin und sporttraumatologie. 2003;51(1):25–30. Google Scholar

Valtin H. “Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8× 8”? Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2002;283(5):R993–1004.PubMedGoogle Scholar

Calderon  R.L., (2000). “The epidemiology of chemical contaminants of drinking water”.Food and Chemical Toxicology. 38(1), S13-20.

Fitzgerald M. (2018) “Which Fluid Hydrates Us Better: Water or a Sports Drink?”

Annotated Bibliography- beachgirl04

 

  1. Anderson, R., Bovo, R., Eismann, C., Menegario, A. and Andrade, D. (2017). “Not Good, but Not All Bad: Dehydration Effects on Body Fluids, Organ Masses, and Water Flux through the Skin of Rhinella schneideri (Amphibia, Bufonidae).” Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, [online] 90(3), pp.313-320.

Background: This article discusses that dehydration regulates one’s water balance within their body. There was a relation that is referenced multiple times to compare dehydration to different animals. Being dehydrated affects one’s water flux.

How I Used it: I used this article to propose arguments that not only are individuals affected physically such as passing out or decreased performance but their internal organs are also greatly affected by dehydration. I also made sure to state that dehydration does not only have bad affects there could be good as well. I focused mainly on water balance and how drinking water causes that.

  1. “Hyponatrema or Overhydration- Who Is At Risk?”(2017). SportMedbc.

Background: This article from SportMedbc provided background information such as defintions as well as who is affected by Hyponatremia also known as over hydration. Hyponatremia has a great affect on marathon runners, military recruits and at times certain athletes. It is extremely important for athletes to be aware of the risk factor of hyponatremia as well as the other fluids to drink to stay healthy and hydrated.

How I Used it: This article benefitted me because it was one of the first I came across. It forced me to continue my search because I did not know over hydration was even a thing. I did use this to define hyponatremia and describe how, why, and when those individuals, most of the time athletes are affected by it.

  1. Oppliger R.A., Bartok C. (2002). “Hydration Testing of Athletes.” Sports Medicine, 32(15), 959-971.

 

Background: This article states that hydration is extremely important to athletes, in comparison when an athlete is dehydrated they are affected greatly. This article focused on monitoring hydration and the different ways to monitor how much water athletes have consumed and determining whether it is enough, more than enough or not enough. All sports team should come up with their own hydration monitoring because of how important it is.

How I Used it: I used the article from Sports Medicine when I was relating hydration and dehydration to athletes and how when we think of the words dehydration and hydration the initial thought is athletes. I gave examples of the different hydration tests that athletes go through or will go through in the future. I made sure to emphasize that when an athlete is dehydrated they not only don’t perform as well but can have other health problems that come about.

  1. Allen TE, Smith DP, Miller DK. (1977). “Hemodynamic response to submaximal exercise after dehydration and rehydration in high school wrestlers.” Medicine and Science in Sports, 9(3), 159-163.

Background: This article discusses a study that was measured in 16 high school wrestlers during a period of weight loss and then again after rehydration. Wrestlers do not eat or drink any fluids at times when they are trying to cut weight. Wrestlers are extremely dehydrated at the time of cutting weight but then as soon as they are allowed, they drink as much water as possible to try to get their bodies back to normal.

How I Used it: This article benefited me again when I was discussing athletes. It gave me a specific sport, wrestling to relate dehydration to. I made sure to put how long wrestlers were not allowed to drink water because it would put them over weight and how their bodies were affected by it but quickly after they rehydrated their bodies were replenished.

  1. Casa D. J. (1999). “Exercise in the Heat. I. Fundamentals of Thermal Physiology, Performance Implication, and Dehydration.” Journal of Athletic Training, 34(3), 246-252.

Background: This article from the Journal of Athletic Training focused on the issue with exercising in the heat. Hydration plays a crucial role when participating in events out in the heat whether it is for athletes or any person. The article provides physiologic foundations and then gives guidelines that athletic trainers should follow when athletes are participating in extreme temperatures.

How I Used it: I used this article to prove that performing activities out in the heat requires individuals to be more hydrated than normal because the water that is going one’s body is just being sweat out. I also made sure to put in facts for those who work with athletes out in the heat how important it is for them to know how much water one needs when out in the heat for long hours. This article proved that water is oe of the only fluids that properly hydrates you for the extreme heat.

  1. Cheuvront S.N, Kenefick R.W. (2014.) “Dehydration: Physiology, Assessment, and Performance Effects.”Comprehensive Physiology.

Background: This article from Comprehensive Physiology discussed that with dehydration it is important to know what osmolality and volume are. They are the physiology, assessment and performance effects of dehydration. Setting a baseline for each of the three are very important. As important as dehydration is the impact of dehydration on a specific skill or task is dependent on the task itself and nothing else.

How I Used it: I used the abstract from this article very briefly to describe the importance of one’s osmolality and volume which are parts of the internal system and how water greatly affects both of those body parts. Drinking water has such an impact on the insides of the body.

  1. Kenefick R.W., Cheuvront S.N., Leon L.R., O’Brien K.K. (2012) “Dehydration and Rehydration.” In Wilderness Medicine Textbook. Natick, MA: Thermal and Mountain Medicine Division.

Background: I took a chapter from the book Wilderness Medicine Textbook and in the chapter it discussed body fluid balance, how much water is required to maintain a healthy body fluid balance. The hydration assessments that can be done to determine if one is hydrated enough and the factors that contribute to that such as urine concentration, body mass, and thirst. It also discusses dehydration, the consequences of it, the effects on one’s cognitive function, work productivity. Lastly, how fluid replacement can play a role in one’s life.

How I Used it: I used this article mainly to emphasize the difference between what it really means to be hydrated vs. dehydrated and how much fluid it takes for one to be hydrated. I also benefitted from this chapter to state the different factors that play a role in dehydration.

  1. . Valtin H.(2002). “Drink at least eight glasses of water a day. Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8× 8”?” American Journal of Physiology Regulatory Integrative Comparitive Physiology.283(5), 993–1004.

Background: This article discusses that “drink at least eight 8-oz glasses of water a day.” It has always been said how important it was to consume a speciifc amount of water but this article refutes that and says that other fluids such as caffeine can be counted towards that number because there were no scientific studies found to support that.

How I Used it: I used this article in my rebuttal argument because it refutes the typical “8×8” glasses of water daily. I made sure to state that other fluids such as caffeinated drinks can be counted towards that “8×8”. It is said that “8×8” is for a healthy adult but it is not required which it has been stated in prior articles that it was.

  1. Shirreffs S. M.(2003). “The optimal sports drink.”Schweizerische Zeitschrif Fur.51(1), 25–30.

Background: This article written by Susan M. Shirreffs about sports drinks discusses what type of drinks athletes should be drunking before, during and after their activity because some are better than others for different times. For example, before exercise drinking water is important to hydrate the body but during exercise it is not the best idea to drink plain water because a drink with carbohydrate electrolytes will allow for better performance and then after, during the rehydration stage it is important to replenish the electrolytes lost.

How I Used it: I used this article because throughout all of my research I have just been finding out things about water and how water affects athletes but I never knew if it was the best fluid for them to be consuming before, during or after exercise. Water is not the best fluid to be consuming during exercise but before and after it is extremely important or else performance will be effected.

  1. Ann C. Grandjean, Kristin J. Reimers, Karen E. Bannick & Mary C. Haven(2000)”The Effect of Caffeinated, Non-Caffeinated, Caloric and Non-Caloric Beverages on Hydration.”Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 19:5, 591-600.

Background: This article from the Journal of the American College of Nutrition studies the effects of multiple different drinks and how they impacted healthy adult males. Caffeinated beverages did not have a negative impact on the males tested.

How I Used it: I used this article to refute my argument as well because it always said “only drink water” well after this article, there is no reason to only drink water every minute of everyday when individuals who are drinking soda, coffee and other caffeinated drinks are still healthy. Individuals are still healthy even without only consuming water.

 

Visual Rewrite- beachgirl04

Play Catch With Her

0:00-0:03- Five steps away from the high tide ocean and a very calm sea, an apparently teen-aged boy in long pants and a long- sleeved shirt with sunglasses to block the glare of the sun kicks a beach ball into the air over his head. The camera shows us a wide view of the beach to show the boy as well as a girl. It is either dawn or sundown and we are aware of that because of the long thin shadow. The boy is only paying to attention to what is in front of him because the girl is running toward him and makes an attempt to jump upward to get the ball he has kicked. The girl is younger than him, she is dressed in pink knee-length leggings and a loose pink top. She runs towards the ball and is very happy, she throws her arms above her head to track the ball’s fall in order to catch it. After the boy kicked the ball into the air he follows it to watch where it will fall but lets the girl catch it after a small bounce. He kicked the ball up for the young girl and wants her to enjoy the time they are spending together on the beach. She puts her tiny arms around as much of the ball as possible as the scene shifts. The boy and the young girl may love the beach, they may have been bored or the boy just wanted to spend some quality time with his sister or daughter.

0:04- The scene shifts and moves from a beach scene to an open field with a white sided house in the background behind multiple different bare trees. There is a man who looks to be in his 20’s or 30’s standing in the dew-covered grass wearing a hat, a jacket and light blue jeans. He looks as if he is about to throw something winding up with his right arm as his throwing arm and the left arm in front, putting more pressure on his back-right leg while the left leg is lifted off of the ground a tiny amount. The season looks to be as if it fall due to the jeans and jacket the man is wearing and the lack of leaves on the trees that are near the house. The man quickly releases the baseball with not much force behind his throw, I do not know where the ball is going it could either be to another person or just to open field. The camera is at a little bit below eye level a good distance away from the man. Even though this is a different scene from before, both of the scenes involve a type of ball along with people. This could exemplify individuals spending time with one another during the nice weather, it could show how important it is to spend time with your family. The other individual may not have been pictured in this scene because he/she could’ve been too far away but it is very unlikely that this man is outside just throwing a ball by himself.

0:05- The scene changes again and shows a young girl around the age of 4 or 5 of color dressed in flips flops twice her size, a blue and white skirt and a light grey short sleeve shirt catching a small blow up colorful beach ball in a fenced in backyard from another person but the other person is not pictured. The sun is setting behind her and she looks frightened and squeezes her eyes shut as the ball is coming into her bent arms. The grass is not the healthiest grass, there are many patches of dead brown grass and very few patches of healthy green grass. This again, involves another type of ball and another individual. She is catching the beachball so it must be coming from another person. It is constant that people are involved in activity with one another and taking time to spend it with others.

0:06- The camera shifts over to show the other little girl who is smaller than her sister dressed in a short-sleeve shirt and long blue jeans. She is having a catch in the same backyard with her sister using the small colorful beach ball. The father who is a big man of color wearing a short-sleeve button up black shirt and dark blue jeans strots out to the backyard to see his two daughters spending time together. He looks interested in getting involved with his arms out to receive if they decide to involve him in their pass and begins having a conversation with his daughters. This shows two sisters spending time together in their backyard and the father coming out to see what they are up to. I would assume the father loves what he sees when he walks out to his daughters and asks them if he could be apart of their pass with the beachball. He wants to take time out of his day to give his daughters attention.

0:07- Change of scenery again, the camera moves inside to a very nice kitchen with stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops and the fridge has magnets all over it which shows there are most likely children who live in the house. There are white cabinets with silver knobs throughout the kitchen. There is a young girl with dirty blonde hair past her shoulders dressed in a blue princess dress who is running out of the kitchen very quickly as if someone is calling her name or the doorbell just rung. I can tell that the family of this daughter likes to keep things organized by the look of the kitchen, it is a very nice kitchen and the young girl looks very happy to be in the house.

0:08- A teenage boy in a dark long sleeve shirt is standing outside of a nice set of garage doors with the windows at the top and the door panels below it, the garage doors are tan.  The teenaged boy is outside during the night time tossing a small item up to himself.

0:10- The camera shifts back inside into the kitchen, stainless steel refrigerator, white cabinets and granite counter tops behind the young girl dressed like a princess. She just bent her arms and caught a small orange ball, the joy on her face is ecstatic.

0:11- The scene shifts once again to a living or family room furnished with two matching black leather chairs and two dark orange fall looking decor pillows along with a small circular side table in between the chairs. There is a big window in the center of the picture that we can see a man dressed in a short sleeve shirt wearing glasses and a young girl dressed in all pink outfront of their house passing a giant lantern looking ball back and forth a couple feet apart from one another. The house looks to be in a warm state, there are palm trees along with the sun shining through the window. There is a vehicle parked outside of the house that the photo shows the front of. This seems to be another father and daughter spending time together outside passing a ball around.

0:14-0:15-The scene shifts to another outside scene but a little bit darker than before with a father and a daughter in her teenage years having a pass with a volleyball outside of their house as it gets later into the night, it is not extremely dark out but the house light is helping these individuals see what they are doing. The blue sky is still pictured and shows through some of the trees. They volley the ball back and forth while moving around. The father is in gray shorts and a white t shirt while the daughter is in a pink hoodie and dark shorts which makes me believe that it is a summer night. This father took the time out of his night to spend some time with his daughter, maybe volleyball is her passion and her father wants her to be the best possible volleyball player there is.

0:16- The scene changes and there is a teenage girl at sunset jumping into a backyard pool about to catch some sort of ball from an individual not pictured. She is midstride into the pool wearing a bikini and her hair pulled back with her arms fully extended into the air. There is an umbrella and a pair of chairs that are placed at the end of the pool along with a couple different planters on the cement that surrounds that pool, there is a big white fence that encloses the pool with a few trees and a red roofed house on the other side of that fence. Sue must be catching the ball from someone else because a ball is not just flying out of no where. Whether the other individual be a sibling, a friend, a parent is unknown. I would assume it is her father because as previously shown it is important to spend time as father and daughter.

0:17- The girl wearing a blue bikini with her dark hair pulled up into a bun catches the ball and jumps into the pool, she is submerged under water and pops her head back up with her hair in her eyes and has a huge smile on her face and looks like she is ready to laugh about what had just happened. I am sure she is shocked that she actually the ball that was thrown. The pool has a glare on it that makes the water look a lot darker than normal light blue pool water. Someone who is not pictured must be complimenting her on her awesome catch because she is very happy.

0:19- The camera changes scenes again and moved to a softball field, where a tall girl with dark hair in a baggy grey t shirt and navy blue softball pants is winding up to pitch a bright yellow softball at a very fast speed. She is right handed and holds the glove in her left hand. Blue skies and a few clouds are in the sky.

0:20- The girl who just released her pitch on the softball field is pitching to her father who is dressed with a navy blue polo, navy and white hat, sunglasses and shorts who caught the ball while squatting behind home plate with the glove in his right hand. They are practicing his daughter’s pitching skills and he looks like he is ready to compliment her on her last pitch because he uses his left hand and points to her and begins speaking. This girl and her father have a bond over softball, the father is taking time out of his day to help his daughter become a better pitcher.

0:23- The camera moves to an older man with grey combed over hair dressed in a light blue short-sleeve shirt in the night time who has a football in his right hand. He is ready to pass it to someone who is not pictured. The houses behind the man look as though they are in Florida because of the palm trees pictured. There is a white house behind him as well as a black mini-van.

0:24: The camera zooms out and shows the man throwing the football to a woman with her hair pulled back and shows the back of her head as she puts both of her arms in the air to intercept the pass. The man and the women are about 15 feet apart in the middle of a street, it looks as if they are in a colt sack because of how the two houses pictured are positioned.

0:25- The ad transitions into a black screen with white writing for the remainder of the video “It only takes a moment to make a moment.” I believe that this quote means it only takes a moment to make someone else’s day and to have an impact on them. Even though the director of this video did a great job of getting her point across to the audience but I believe she could’ve done an even better job. In the scenes where both individuals were not pictured, I believe she should have pictured them in one or two because that would have made the audience 100% realize her reason behind this video.

Rebuttal—beachgirl04

Dehydration; there’s a lot more to it

We give little thought to water, the fluid that preserves our health, maintains our body temperature, prevents headaches, and most importantly, keeps us hydrated.For many water is the only way to stay hydrated for daily living or strenuous activity. Overwhelming evidence proves that water maintains the equal body temperature needed for healthy blood flow and that performance suffers for athletes who don’t drink enough water prior to an event.

Even though water is the go to drink, it is the easiest type of drink to get no matter where we are and it is the most important fluid that enters our body. There are still people who refuse to drink water, say it is not the best fluid to keep us hydrated and argue that there are other fluids that can do a better job than water. Some of these arguments could be true, but could only be true to some. If there are individuals who do not need water in order to live a healthy lifestyle and do not become dehydrated without water then they happen to be lucky, hard to find individuals.

As researched prior it is important that one drinks at least 8-ounce glasses of water a day in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle and stop themselves from the awfulness of dehydration. The long lasting idea that anything other than water such as iced tea, coffee, tea, and sodas dehydrated you and to stay away from them. However, a recent study found that no scientific studies were found in support of 8 x 8. Rather, surveys of food and fluid intake on thousands of adults of both genders, analyses of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals, strongly suggest that such large amounts are not needed because the surveyed persons were presumably healthy and certainly not overtly ill. This conclusion is supported by published studies showing that caffeinated drinks (and, to a lesser extent, mild alcoholic beverages like beer in moderation) may indeed be counted toward the daily total, as well as by the large body of published experiments that attest to the precision and effectiveness of the osmoregulatory system for maintaining water balance (Valtin, 283). With that being said, it shows that maybe 8 ounces of just water are not needed daily in order to keep an individual hydrated and without those 8 ounces a person will not become ill. It also brings forth something that not many people know and that is that all of those caffeinated drinks such as iced tea, coffee, and soda can be counted towards the total of how much fluid you are consuming daily that contributes to hydration.

When it comes to achieving any goal there are always strategies to do so. For example in order to be hydrated each day people set strategies such as drinking a certain amount of water by this time, the next amount of water 3 hours later and so on so that they can make sure they are hydrated each day and drinking the amount of water that their body requires. Some beg to differ, for example there was an experiment done to examine the effect of various combinations of beverages on hydration status in healthy living males. The men consumed different combination of beverages including beverages that were carbonated, caffeinated caloric, non-caloric and coffee. Before this took place body weight, urine and blood were measured as well as afterwards. There was no significant differences in the effect of various combination of beverages on hydration status of healthy adult males.Advising people to disregard caffeinated beverages as part of the daily fluid intake is not substantiated by the results of this study. The across-treatment weight loss observed, when combined with data on fluid-disease relationships, suggests that optimal fluid intake may be higher than common recommendations. Further research is needed to confirm these results and to explore optimal fluid intake for healthy individuals (Grandjean, 591-600). This is another counterargument to my thesis that only drinking water is the key to staying hydrated each day. Since there was no significant difference in the males being studied who were drinking all different types of fluid compared to the ones who were just drinking water, it makes us question what are these different fluids doing to our internal organs that need water each day? That study disagrees with those individuals who come up with hydration strategies and believe those strategies are not necessary.

Within this argument, sports and strenuous activity have been important because hydration is even more essential to those individuals compared to others because dehydration can effect their performance. The main aim or aims of sports drink consumption do vary according to the exercise situation, but are likely to be one or more of the following: to stimulate rapid fluid absorption, to supply carbohydrate as a substrate for use during exercise, to speed re- hydration, to reduce the physiological stress of exercise, and to promote recovery after exercise. Water is not the optimum fluid for ingestion during en- durance exercise, and there is compelling evidence that drinks containing added substrate and electrolytes are more effective. Increasing the carbohydrate content of drinks will increase the amount of fuel which can be supplied, but will tend to decrease the rate at which water can be made available. (Shirreffs, 25-28). Taken from that, water is not the best drink for athletes to drink during their strenuous activity like it always has been, there must be other fluids that they incorporate in order to keep their performance up because if not their body can shut down and not perform to the best of their ability.

There is simply no way that anyone can avoid drinking water completely and still live a healthy lifestyle. There may be some days that one does not need to drink as much water as another day and can consume the other beverages such as soda, coffee, or alcoholic beverages but those fluids need to be combined with the consumption of water. Dehydration will always be as bad as it is made out to be because of how it effects the inside organs of your body, it takes a toll on you. Dehydration may affect some worse than it affects others, but it will never be a positive effect always negative.

References

Grandjean AC, Reimers KJ, Bannick KE, Haven MC. The effect of caffeinated, non-caffeinated, caloric and non-caloric beverages on hydration. J Am Coll Nutr. 2000;19(5):591–600. PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar

Shirreffs SM. The optimal sports drink. Schweizerische zeitschrift fur sportmedizin und sporttraumatologie. 2003;51(1):25–30.

[I followed the link you provided to Google Scholar for this source, BeachGirl, and discovered I was still one click away from the material. Here’s the actual link you should be using: https://ssms.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Zeitschrift/51-2003-1/06-2003-1.pdf

I could anchor it to the title for you if you like, but you’ll benefit more if I demonstrate to you again how to do it for yourself. You’ll need the skill for your Bibliography.]

Valtin H. “Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8× 8”? Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2002;283(5):R993–1004. PubMedGoogle Scholar

Definition- beachgirl04

We have always been told to drink water and the importance of drinking water but we really do not know what would happen to our body if we did not drink water. The term hydration is emphasized as well as dehydration. However, do we know what dehydration actually means or what will happen to our bodies if we do not have any water inside of it, there could be so many different meanings behind the word “dehydration”. Water loss dehydration is one of the two types of dehydration also known as hyperosmolar and occurs either because of increased sodium or glucose. It is said that dehydration is rarely due to neglect from formal or informal care givers, but rather results from a combination of physiological and disease processes (Thomas,292-301). The other type of dehydration is referred to as salt and water loss dehydration or hyponatremia.

Dehydration has always been thought of as an unpleasant occurrence that individuals experience. There are hydration tests that athletes take part in because of how bad dehydration is for them specifically. Dehydration reduces athletic performance and also puts athletes at risk for bad injuries and sometimes even death. For athletes, specifically it is crucial to stay hydrated because it will affect their performance tremendously. Monitoring hydration has significant value in maximizing performance during training and competition (Oppliger, 959-971). We know that drinking water is key for athletes because it affects how they play and without hydration could cause injuries but have we ever wondered what water is doing that causes our bodies to need it so badly. Dehydration can occur before exercise (hypo-hydration) or it can develop during exercise (exercise induced dehydration). Being involved in sports is when we hear it most often that it is important to always drink water before and after practice and that is because water is what helps regulate our body temperature and allow our muscles to contract, also our body keeps a normal body temperature by sweating out water which occurs during exercise.

In contrast to athletes being dehydrated and getting injured as a result of that there is also such thing as overhydrating. Over-hydration normally occurs to people who are involved in exercise that last longer than three hours, this is because the amount of sweat increased which causes the athlete to not have enough sodium in their blood stream. However, excessive overdrinking should be avoided because it can also compromise physical performance and health (Casa, 212). In the past, there has been examples of individuals whose blood sodium falls to a low level and their brain swells, which can result in seizures, coma, and death. When individuals do not know how much they should drink it is not smart to just keep drinking. The amount of water an athlete should drink depends on their volume of sweat and the sodium concentration of their sweat, both of which can vary depending on aerobic fitness, exercise intensity and ambient temperature(SportMedBC).

There are constant concerns with athletes and how much water they should be drinking or not drinking but hydration is still important for everyone else in the world. If we were outside at a three-day festival and did not have enough water in our system, would we would pass out? Would our brain dry out? Would our body shut down? Dehydration has so many effects on our body that are not all good and somehow not all bad. Dehydration does cause an increase in the concentration of body fluids, changes in the organ masses, evaporative water loss diminished and water reabsorption increased. Dehydration challenges the water balance and also decreases the water flux (Anderson, 313). Dehydration will not affect the body that others can physically see and tell us that we are dehydrated but the insides of our body start to experience difficulty and cannot function as well without having enough water in our system. Individuals may feel like they are going to pass out because their blood volume decreases and that cause blood pressure to drop which leads to not having enough blood and oxygen in our brain and that can also force us to feel like we are going to pass out.

In order to not get dehydrated, we need to be aware of how to stay hydrated and the process that it takes to have enough water in our system in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. At the end of the day being dehydrated is extremely bad for us as humans. Depending on the lifestyle that each of us live, it is important that we must drink at least half of our body weight in ounces of water daily and that is because our bodies are made up of 55-75% water and we do in fact lose water daily by breathing. Some do not enjoy drinking plain old water, it is a suggestion to eat certain foods that we can get water from; the best source is fruits and veggies (McArthur).

Hydrating is not something that someone can force on us, we must force ourselves to stay hydrated and to drink enough water because it has so many different benefits and prevents us from getting dehydrated. Being dehydrated will not cause death, it can but it is not something that awful instead it will affect the inside organs of our body as important as an individual’s brain. However, the constant instruction to drink water and stay hydrated when we are going to be outside for long hours or are going to participate in exercise is important. Our body needs it, it depends on water in so many different ways.

 

References

“Are you drinking enough water?” 2016, Jun 10. The Spectrum.

“Hydration Testing of Athletes” Springerlink. December 2002.

“Hyponatemia or Overhydration- Who is at Risk? “ SportMedbc. 2017.

“Not Good, but Not All Bad: Dehydration Effects on Body Fluids, Organ Masses, and Water Flux through the Skin of Rhinella schneideri (Amphibia, Bufonidae)” . The University of Chicago Press Journals. 3 January 2017.