Is it better to drink bottled water or tap water?

We have hopefully established how important water is, and the health benefits of drinking the right amount of water.

The next step is to decide what sort of water you should drink. The main choices are bottled water and tap water.

See the arguments set out below and then decide what you think.

It’s healthier to drink bottled water

The main reasons people drink bottled water;
• The most common complaints about tap water are Taste 32%
• Worried about contaminants 31%
• Limescale 28%
• The main reason people drink bottled water:
• 39% think bottled water is healthier than tap water
• 35% think bottled water tastes better

Is bottled water safe to drink?

The simple answer is yes sort of, maybe!! Its really down to personal choice and risk. There is no imminent danger to drinking bottled water but there has been research carried out that says micro plastic particles are evident in the water.

One 2018 study, for example, tested 11 globally sourced brands of bottled water from nine different countries. The researchers found that 93% of the bottles showed some signs of microplastic contamination, and that they contained double the amount present in tap water.
These findings suggest that the contamination is at least partially due to the packaging process itself. Researchers are now starting to investigate the impact of these microplastics on human health.
Microplastics appear to fall within the same category of endocrine-disrupting chemicals as obesogens, affecting human, animal, and marine metabolism, reproduction, oxidative stress, and several other factors.

What’s the difference between mineral and spring water, and which is best

How is natural mineral water made?
Mineral water is also known as spring water because it comes from natural springs, which are places where moving underground water comes out of an opening in the land's surface. Mineral water can also be made artificially by adding salts to distilled water or aerating it with carbon dioxide to create more carbonation.

Mineral water is usually carbonated. Healthy people can drink mineral water without any problems, as long as they don't overindulge. Drinking it regularly in large quantities can have an adverse effect on the kidneys and can lead to the formation of kidney stones. Is purified or distilled water better? Purified water is usually a good option since the purification process removes chemicals and impurities from the water. You should not drink distilled water since it lacks naturally-occurring minerals, including calcium and magnesium, that are beneficial for health.

It’s healthier to drink tap water

A study of over 1,000 people in Belfast found that they couldn’t tell the difference between tap and bottled water when asked which was the more pleasant, pure, natural and refreshing.

Is it ok to drink tap water in the UK?

The short answer technically is yes sort of. But there have been instances across the UK whereby drinking water has become contaminated. There are companies that have failed to warn consumers of toxic water and many companies have been fined for polluting rivers.

You will see that the industry regulators and watchdog are fining companies and introducing new measures to stop pollutions.

It is important to note that the majority of our drinking water coming through the tap is highly processed because it contains our sewage water, rivers, streams and brooks that run via factories and industrial plants as well as through the countryside where farmers and crop growers are spraying pesticides and herbicides and fertilisers on their fields. This is collected and processed to death and then chlorine is added along with an array of chemicals for health.

Further to this, when the water leaves the filtration plant it travels down the pipes many of which are from the Victorian Era and have cracks and leaks in them.

So, if you are going to drink tap water;

when you switch on the tap let it run for a moment to clear old water from the pipe.
Let the tap run slowly to avoid building up the pressure on the pipe and dragging residue which has settled.
Occasionally turn your tap on full for a minute or two to clear any sediment that be around.
Only fill your kettle with enough water for the drinks you have and replenish each time.

Plastic water bottles damage the environment

Water bottles make up half of all plastic waste in the Thames (London.gov.uk).

Also, production and transportation of the world’s demand for bottled water uses the equivalent of 160 million barrels of oil per year (TheNational.ae)

You can see more below, or go back to WaterDrive or Home

YouDrive thinks....

We can see both sides of this…

There are arguments regarding pollution on both sides of this debate. You can see information on both sides in this drive.

The YouDriveHealth principals take slightly different views on this.

Filtered Tap Water

You can obtain a filter on the mains supply or simply run some fresh water into a filter jug and place the filter jug in the fridge and enjoy even fresher cleaner water. Or buy a Filter jug can be bought for as little as £20. Alternatively drink pure spring water.

We would recommend slowly fill a filter jug and store in the fridge. Transfer to a stainless steel water bottle for drinking at work.

If you prefer sparkling water you can buy a SodaStream device and gas bottle and have sparkling water without buying bottles of water.

You can see more below, or go back to WaterDrive or Home

More information

Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life

You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty!

Asthma, allergies, arthritis, hypertension, depression, head-aches, diabetes, obesity, and MS. These are just some of the conditions and diseases that are caused by persistent dehydration.

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Fruit Infused Water

50+ Original Fruit and Herb Infused SPA Water Recipes for Holistic Wellness

Super Healthy, Revitalizing, and All-Natural Fruit Water Recipes to Boost Your Wellbeing!

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Water Codes

The Science of Health, Consciousness, and Enlightenment

The most revolutionary work to date on the subject of Water, Consciousness, and Spirituality. Through new science and ancient wisdom, Water Codes reveals the truth about Water and Consciousness, and decodes the leading sciences of health, DNA, energy, and enlightenment.

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7 Cup Water Filter Jug With Advanced 5 Stage Filter

Water Quality Meter + Water Filter Cartridge Included, 1.7 litres

Available in 1.7 litres, 2.4 litres, 2.6 litres or 2.8 litres with or without filters.

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SodaStream Crystal Sparkling Water Maker Machine

with 600 ml Reusable Glass Carafe for Carbonating and 60 L CO2 Gas Cylinder – Crystal Machine Only Compatible with Glass Carafe Bottle – Black

Instant carbonated water at home: Simply fill with tap water, sparkle and sip. Enjoy your favourite fizzy water any time

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CanO Water

Still Resealable 24x330ml

Infinitely recyclable

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There are apps to help you drink enough water – see the Healthline assessment of the top 5

Healthline also have a lot of information on how much water you should drink each day

Tap water drinkers can also see information at Join the Pipe

You can download the Water For Life White Paper from the Government here

Go to top of page

YouDriveHealth

At YouDriveHealth we can provide you with information, tools, calculators and also support for may aspects of health – physical, financial and mental. If you register by entering your email address then when you sign in you can comment and contribute.

See Terms of Service

See Privacy Policy and Cookies

See Comment Moderation policy

Website : YouDriveHealth Limited

All areas of health are interlinked

Find your initial focus

You might think that physical, financial and mental health are quite separate, and for some people they are. However, often a problem in one area has a knock-on effect on others. Losing your job can lead to anxiety and depression, which can turn you to drink and impact your health.

You might have a severe issue in one area but that can lead to problems in other areas, and the people treating you for the first problem won’t be equipped to deal with these linked issues.

For example, doctors and nurses can treat you for a physical problem but can’t advise you about your job or finances. Nor for the anxiety that comes with it, apart from prescribing some drugs, which might or might not be the best solution.

We encourage you to take a holistic view – we look at all areas and offer support across the whole spectrum.

Even this view of health is simplistic, as you’ll discover later if you go down that route. You might want to consider overall health, or wellness or wellbeing, which include additional types of health, such as occupational health (how you are in your job). Then there’s happiness and quality of life – how do these fit?

If you’re interested in that, click the link here to see more information.

SodaStream Terra Sparkling Water Maker Machine

with 1 Litre Reusable BPA-Free Water Bottle for Carbonating & 60 Litre Quick Connect CO2 Gas Cylinder – Black

Instant carbonated water at home: Simply fill with tap water, sparkle and sip. Enjoy your favourite fizzy water any time

Go to Amazon

7 Cup Water Filter Jug With Advanced 5 Stage Filter

Water Quality Meter + Water Filter Cartridge Included, 1.7 litres

Available in 1.7 litres, 2.4 litres, 2.6 litres or 2.8 litres with or without filters.

Go to Amazon

Health Areas in Domains

Domains

We break down the overall concept of health or wellness into ‘bite-sized chunks’ that we can actually do something about. The first level we call health domains.

We like the Life of Wellness site and we have chosen the following domains.

1. Emotional Wellness: Awareness and acceptance of feelings
2. Spiritual Wellness: A search for meaning and purpose
3. Intellectual Wellness: Recognition of your creativity, knowledge and skills
4. Physical Wellness: Need for physical activity and balanced nutrition
5. Environmental Wellness: Positive awareness and impact on your environment
6. Financial Wellness: Debt reduction, cash flow balance or financial future planning
7. Occupational Wellness: Personal achievement and enrichment from your career
8. Social Wellness: Contribution to your community

Health Areas

Within each domain, we have included a number of health areas. These are specific issues that you can tackle. Within each health area, e.g. Depression, we have built additional information and exercises which you can do to help in the area. You can create your own Action Plan to address this area, and see

Emotional: Anxiety, Compassion Fatigue, Depression, Gambling, Laughter, Narcissistic, Personality Disorder, Sleep, Stress

Environmental: Environmental Issues, Greenness

Financial: Debt, Family Finance, Financial Planning, Financial Wellness

Intellectual: IQ, Personality, Procrastination

Occupational: Jobs for Different Personality Types, Retirement Income, Work Life Balance

Physical: Alcohol, Disabilities, Dizziness, Drugs, Fitness, Food Preferences, General Health, Healthy Ageing, Illness, Nutrition, Sleep Apnea, Smoking

Social: Communication Skills, Communication Styles, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Love Partnerships, Mental Abuse, Parenting Styles, Sexual Addiction

Spiritual: Are You Sensitive, Mystical Guidance, Spirituality

Each health area has supporting information and its own questionnaire.

Physical, financial and mental health

One definition of health is:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

The NHS define health as: ‘We use a broad definition of health that encompasses both physical and mental health, as well as wellbeing. This means we are not only interested in whether or not people are ill or have a health condition, but also in how healthy and well they are.’

We believe we also have to consider financial health, as this can easily impact physical and mental health. Click the button to see an example of how these are connected.

It gets more complicated…

What is Health? How about Wellness, Wellbeing or Happiness?

The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) define Health as a state of the overall mental and physical state of a person; the absence of disease. They define Wellbeing or wellness as a way of life that aims to enhance well-being and refers to a more holistic whole-of-life experience which also includes emotional and spiritual aspects of life. We expand on this definition of health to include financial health and mental health, to make it synonymous with wellbeing or wellness.

Health domains

We break down the overall concept of health or wellness into ‘bite-sized chunks’ that we can actually do something about. The first level we call health domains.

We like the Life of Wellness site and we have chosen the following domains.

Health Areas

Within each domain, we have included a number of health areas. These are specific issues that you can tackle. Within each health area, e.g. Depression, once you have subscribed we have built additional information and exercises which you can do to help in the area.

See which domains you should address

Having established that we use 8 domains, you need to understand which you should concentrate on.

The 8 are:

Emotional
Environmental
Financial
Intellectual
Occupational
Physical
Social
Spiritual

You can take a questionnaire, which scores you in each domain. You can decide which domains you are strong in, and which you need to improve.

Another analysis shows which domains you should look at, but also which domains you want to look at.

Locus of Control

We want to help people in all aspects of their health – physical, financial and mental. We also provide detailed explanations of how overall health (or well-being) is measured.
We believe these things are often linked, so we try and address health holistically. We are building templates, questionnaires and exercises to help you identify what’s important to you.
We think people should try and take responsibility for of their own health as much as they can. See below for what that means.

People look at things differently. Some people believe things happen to them, while others believe they can influence what happens to them. Technically this is called the ‘locus of control’. People can have an Internal or external Locus of Control

So how do you see things?

Psychology Today have a 15 minute test which gives you a summary of your position you can buy the detailed results if you want to.

My Personality Test have a 10 minute test which gives you a summary.

People tend to take more responsibility (locus gets more internal) as they get older. However, external isn’t always bad – for example if you are physically unable to do some things you can accept it and focus on the things you can do. This American video explains the concept and gives examples of how this can affect relationships.

Internal

More likely to take responsibility for actions
Tend to be less influenced by others

External

Blame outside forces for what happens
Don’t believe they can change their situation themselves

Add your attitude to change - see how you view changes in your life

Do you need to change?

No matter how healthy you are at the moment, the chances are that there are some areas you could improve. It may be that you have a real problem in one or more areas, and you would like to make some improvements.

At YouDrive we accept that there are many different degrees of ‘not wellness’ in a large number of different health areas, ranging from physical illness such as covid-19 through mental illness such as anxiety through to financial problems like debt. We try and help where the problem ranges from ‘slight’ to quite bad’ – after this expert help and intervention may be needed.

However, especially in these times, we have to try and make these changes ourselves, possibly with some help from others, whether remotely or face to face.

The thing is, to make an improvement we have to change some things.

This involves changing our behaviour in some respects, and that’s not always easy.

Henry Ford, the creator of the assembly line, is quoted as saying “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.

Another way of looking at this: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – attributed to Albert Einstein.

Consequently we need to make some changes. The problem is that we have already developed a lot of habits, some of which we need to break and replace by better ones. Some of our bad habits have become entrenched, and the bad results they create in turn engender further bad habits to develop – in effect the bad habits can feed on themselves.

We need to understand how we can make changes and stick to them, and that’s what this part of your health profile is about.

It will involve some learning, through reading, some videos and some additional information and also seeing how you react to change currently.

It will also ask you to consider whether you feel you are in charge of your future, or whether you feel it’s all fate.

Assess your overall health using a health questionnaire

At YouDrive we try and help people improve their health. We use ‘health’ but we understand there are other terms such as wellbeing or even happiness that reflect how we are doing in our lives – if you’re interested in the different definitions and ideas see our page on the subject.

We want to help whether you have a particular problem – physical, financial or mental – or if you just want to improve some specific part of your life or just make some improvements overall.

You’d be surprised, but there has been a serious amount of scientific work done in this area over the last twenty years.

So first we allow you to assess your current health (or wellbeing, or happiness). We do this by questionnaire. Which one is determined by the type of person you are:

You understand yourself well and want a quick overview of your health and wellness, and will drill down in any areas needing work
You want to do a more detailed assessment and then focus on areas you’re already aware of
You want to look at the whole situation in more detail across all the health domains.

By the way, we take your privacy seriously – we collect information that you choose to provide but we de-identify it as much as possible and will never share it with anyone without your explicit consent.

You can then drill down into some specific areas and there are more questionnaires to see your situation in these particular areas. We provide you with specific information and refer you to other potential aspects of help. Our next step is to build a personalised action plan – for now we will make a suggestion for you to develop your own plan and then after a time you can see whether this has had a positive impact by retaking the test.

In future we will be engaging with medical and behavioural specialists to devise action plans for individual people with specific situations.

We have an overall questionnaire which you can complete which will assess your current state.

Values, Attitudes and Beliefs

We all have our beliefs, attitudes and values – these have developed throughout our life based on who we are and what we have done. Let’s look at what these are.

The University of Reading explain: “People’s values, beliefs and attitudes are formed and bonded over time through the influences of family, friends, society and life experiences. So, by the time you’re an adult, you can hold very definite views on just about everything with a sense of “no one is going to change my mind”.

The combination of your personal values, beliefs and attitudes are your moral principles that guide you in life and affect your behaviour. However, your views can wildly differ to others and in an institution such as a school, these beliefs may be counter to the values of the school, child development or indeed the law.”

Let’s look more closely at the differences between beliefs, attitudes and values.

Beliefs

These come from real experiences – we think our beliefs are based on reality, but in fact our beliefs colour our experiences; also, an original experience e.g. when we were a child is not the same as what’s happening now. Beliefs can be moral, religious or cultural and reflect who we are. They can be rational (‘it gets colder in winter’) or irrational (‘I am never going to make something of myself’).

Attitudes

This is an immediate belief or disposition about something specific. It is a recurring group of beliefs and behaviours aimed at specific groups, people, ideas or objects. They will normally be positive or negative and we will always behave that way to the target group. Examples of attitudes include confidence (I can or can’t do something), grateful (I an entitled to / grateful for XXX) and cheerful (I am generally happy / miserable).

Values

These are things (principles or qualities) that we hold in high regard or consider to be worthwhile or right / wrong. They are formed by a belief related to the worth of something – an idea or behaviour. Some values are common (e.g. family comes first, the value of friendship) or cultural (which the whole community have – see video at Study.com here)

The theory

Links to Wikipedia

Expectancy Value Theory suggests you balance your beliefs about something with the value you attach to it. The Theory of Reasoned Action suggests that beliefs and evaluation about behavioural outcomes determine attitudes, and intentions lead directly to behaviour.

Beliefs

Expressions of confidence – can change over time

Attitudes

Learned predispositions to something – are subject to change

Values

Ideals that guide our behaviour – Generally long lasting and often need life changing experience to change

Iceberg demonstrating implicit and explicit bias – from Owlcation

A Butterfly Life: 4 Keys to More Happiness, Better Health and Letting Your True Self Shine

Times of change can be a challenge, no doubt! Whether it’s a relationship breakup, job loss, or being diagnosed with a serious health issue. Or you may WANT things to be different, but it feels a little scary or overwhelming. The butterfly reminds us change can be beautiful, even necessary, in order to realize our full potential and live our best life.

Is it better to drink bottled water or tap water?

It’s healthier to drink bottled water

Is bottled water safe to drink?

Bottled water increases

What’s the difference between mineral and spring water, and which is best

It’s healthier to drink tap water

Is it ok to drink tap water in the UK?

Plastic water bottles damage the environment

YouDrive thinks....

More information

Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life

Fruit Infused Water

Water Codes

7 Cup Water Filter Jug With Advanced 5 Stage Filter

SodaStream Crystal Sparkling Water Maker Machine

CanO Water

YouDriveHealth

All areas of health are interlinked

Find your initial focus

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

SodaStream Terra Sparkling Water Maker Machine

7 Cup Water Filter Jug With Advanced 5 Stage Filter

Health Areas in Domains

Domains

Health Areas

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Understand Health

Physical, financial and mental health

What is Health? How about Wellness, Wellbeing or Happiness?

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Health domains

Health Areas

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

See which domains you should address

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Locus of Control

So how do you see things?

Internal

External

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Add your attitude to change - see how you view changes in your life

Do you need to change?

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Assess your overall health using a health questionnaire

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Values, Attitudes and Beliefs

Beliefs

Attitudes

Values

The theory

Beliefs

Attitudes

Values

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

A Butterfly Life: 4 Keys to More Happiness, Better Health and Letting Your True Self Shine