Can you find health in a bottle of water? [Video]

Video: Can you find health in a bottle of water?

Dr. Vikki Petersen discusses misleading advertisements for vitamin-infused water, emphasizing that true health cannot be achieved through quick fixes. She criticizes a company’s claim that their water provides sufficient vitamin D, explaining that vitamin D is fat-soluble and not effectively absorbed from water. Dr. Petersen highlights the importance of maintaining adequate vitamin D levels for health and warns against believing in simple solutions marketed in appealing ways. She encourages focusing on consistent healthy habits like proper diet and exercise to achieve and maintain good health.

Transcript of the video

Hello, Dr. Vikki Petersen here. I wanted to talk to you today about something I recently saw in a magazine. It was an advertisement, and this company spent a lot of money on it because they had two full pages of thick cardstock paper. If you’ve seen those in a magazine, you know they work beautifully because the magazine tends to open to those pages since the paper is so much thicker. They say with ads, you have to see them about three times before you remember them. I think that’s about the number of times my magazine inadvertently opened to these pages before I actually looked at what the advertisement was saying.

They certainly did a lot right from a marketing viewpoint—very colorful, it caught your eye with the literal colors of the rainbow, from red on one end to the indigo black on the other. But as I said, it took me a few times before I actually looked at it.

What this is, is a drink that’s mostly water. They were claiming, without being too overt about it because they were savvy and avoided making any illegal claims, that it could improve everything from energy levels, sleep, appearance, weight loss, sports performance, to even getting sunshine in a bottle. I’ll explain that one in a minute.

The first page had many different adjectives like beautiful, gorgeous, energetic, trim, restful—every adjective you could possibly imagine was listed. They basically said, “We have a blank for that,” meaning they have a drink to handle each and every one of these.

Do you believe that? Do you wish it was true? Okay, I’ll grant you that one—I think we all wish we could just drink something and have any problem we had handled. But do you believe it? Do you believe that’s really true?

I went online to this company and looked up the ingredients in these waters they were selling. I’ll give you an example of their “sun” product. They claimed you don’t need to go out into the dangerous sun with UV rays, but simply get the benefits of vitamin D by drinking this drink. Now, vitamin D is very important for bone health and immune health—we know there’s tremendous importance in maintaining adequate vitamin D levels, and many of us are deficient, leading to several health problems. There’s no argument there.

What I do have an argument with is this company saying you can get your vitamin D by drinking their water. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning it needs to be in fat for you to absorb it. Of course, water is not a fatty substance. So, throwing a little vitamin D3 in water is not going to ensure you get your proper vitamin D levels in a given day. They didn’t tell you how much of any of these substances were in these bottles either, but I can guarantee you it’s not enough to take someone who is deficient in vitamin D and make them no longer deficient.

That got me a little riled up, as you can probably tell. But the other thing was the concept behind it. We’re so into the quick fix in this country—we want to take a pill and the next morning be 20 pounds lighter, or drink one of these drinks with a bunch of caffeine in it to give us “energy.” It’s not real, and these companies take advantage of the fact that we want that and actually think it’s possible. They wouldn’t be taking out this beautiful ad in an expensive magazine, and probably doing it in a lot of magazines, if they didn’t believe their product was going to sell. I’m sure it’s selling very well, and therein lies the problem.

What I wanted to communicate today is that those kinds of simple fixes are not real. They’re a fantasy, and there’s no point in spending your money on them. If it’s a drink that supposedly gives you energy, it’s just supposed energy. There might be enough of an herb to give you a caffeine high or a stimulant for a little while, but then what happens? You’re more exhausted than when you started, craving the stimulant, and on a merry-go-round that’s not heading you in the direction of health.

True health and achieving it does not need to be difficult or terribly complex. When you know what you need to do, it’s not found in a bottle of water. I hope this gave you some food for thought. I want you to start thinking about your health and the health of your children and family a little differently. When someone says, “I can drink this water and get my vitamin D3 for the day,” give them a little word of caution because that’s not accurate. It’s really not the way to think about our health. It’s what we do every day—exercise, good diet, and taking steps to optimize the functioning of all our organs. These things don’t need to be difficult, but they do need to be done. It’s not found in a bottle of water with a beautiful label. It can look pretty, but that doesn’t mean it’s great for you.

Just a little word of caution. I hope I gave you some food for thought, and until next time, I wish you very good health.

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