Is Bottled Fancy Water Bad For Kids?

Is fancy water hurting your teeth? Fancy water is any water that has something added to it. Some dentists will tell you fancy waters that have flavor added are no substitute for tap water. Apparently the concern is that these bottled waters don’t contain enough fluoride to adequately protect and maintain your teeth from decay. Most of them don’t contain any fluoride at all. Fluoride is actually added to city water at the water filtration plant. This is terrible on your kid's teeth. I don't really give my kids more expensive flavored waters more often. Only when it is hot.

A controversy has been raging about whether or not fluoride actually causes tooth decay for more than a decade. There are some people that think that the addition of fluoride to our water is part of a big conspiracy to keep our teeth rotten and keep dentists in business. Does your kid need fluoride? This is something that you might want to do in moderation. I don't know what to do because all of the messages are so mixed so I make sure my kids drink half bottled water and half tap water. The key is variety when it comes to water types. That way you are hedging your bets. They are not getting too much fluoride from the tap water or too much artificial flavoring or even sugar (!) from bottled fancy waters.

People who love bottled water are very aware of their health, and tend to want to sample the water “straight from the source.” They think that because they are drinking water bottle straight from an iceberg or bubbling spring that it must be pure because it’s fancy water. However there are absolutely no regulations, worldwide or otherwise, that determine the overall purity of bottled fancy water. So I really do worry about my kids.

Before I give my kids any kind of doctored up water I make sure I read the label. Nowadays they are pepped up with all kinds of things. Mostly these substances are uppers and include things like ginseng. Sometimes really toxic stuff is added like food coloring.

You also see weird things on bottled water labels like ozone. Have any studies been done on what that could be doing to a kid? Apparently this helps the body absorb water faster but are there really any studies regarding that. There is no scientific evidence to back up this claim that oxygenated water is absorbed quicker by the water.

Flavored fancy water, the ones that have a hint of orange or lime in their brew are the favorites of many people who get sick of drinking their water plain. You can also get a charge one day drinking caffeine water. However you can just drink a cup of coffee for much cheaper. I don't feel like giving my kids a cup of water that is as peppy as a cup of coffee. Waters sometimes have things added to them like ginseng, kola nut and other natural uppers. Is your kid acting like he needs to go on Ritalin? Maybe the culprit is the additive in the water.

The Competitive Mom

The thing I can't stand about some of these celebrity moms is how over identified they are with their children. The child is simply not allowed to have its own identity. A good example of this is Surie Cruise. The two are parading around in identical Armani outfits and Katie recently got a haircut to match her daughter's. The problem is that in Katie's case she looks more like she is trying to compete with her child than anything. In fact in some photos it is hard to tell who looks younger, Katie or Surie?

Some moms would probably really disagree with me but I think it is a big mistake to make your kid into your twin. It demons you by making you look younger and it makes the kid wonder who the parents are. You should not try to be narcissistic with your child unless you want to develop a full-blown codependency with him or her. Even real twins are not encouraged to dress alike or wear similar haircuts these days because it is toxic psychologically. A child needs to develop his or her own sense of self.

Another example of a mom that competes with her kid is Lindsay Lohan's mom. This is a mother that dresses like her daughter, goes out to all of the same night clubs as her and basically appropriates her identity wherever possible. She also drinks a lot and is into the celerity lifestyle of all night partying so it is not surprising that Lindsay turned out to be such a lush. This type of mother daughter competition is becoming so severe in celebrity land that even Dr. Phil did a show about it.

A competitive mom usually starts showing their jealousy of their own child quite young by stealing their friends, hobbies and styles of clothing. This often extends into adolescence when flirting with the boyfriend's beco0mes an issue.

According to an episode done on the Today show this t type of syndrome is more common than we think. The one gunmanship continues into adult hood. The mother makes comments that are a stab to her daughter's heart sitting there competing for the attentions of her husband and children.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you do not have a strong personality or emotional center than you probably should not have children. The damage you can do to a daughter by being competitive with her is immense. Jennifer Aniston is also a very famous example of this and so was Anna Nicole Smith. Mothers who competed with them with the result raised both that both were dumped completely from their daughter's lives.

The key is to let your daughter be who she is going to be and not to try and control her by insisting you wear the same clothes or have the same haircut. Remember that your child is not an extension of you. She is much more than that.