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Children Are Not Little Adults
Charles Strand, Water Quality Specialist
Beside the fact that they are much smaller, children’s bodies are really quite different from that of an adult. Because many of the crucial defense systems that help protect adults from disease and environmental pollutants are not fully developed in children, they are much more sensitive to environmental pollutants. Just as medications and other chemical compounds affect children differently than they do adults, so do contaminants in our air, drinking water, and foods. Unfortunately, there is little we can do about toxins in the air and chemicals in foods. This fact makes the purity of our water even more critical. Water is the body’s only way to flush out dangerous toxins. The purer the water is to start with, the higher its capacity is to collect and cleanse these harmful compounds from the body. Pure water helps a child’s defenses grow stronger and perform better, resulting in the protection they need during fragile developmental years.
A child’s immune and detoxification systems are still developing into and throughout their early teens. Exposure to even very low levels of toxic chemicals in childhood years has been linked to increased risks of degenerative disease in later years. A mixture of chemicals such as chlorine, lead, herbicides, pesticides, and a host of other contaminants are commonly found in our water supplies and in many bottled waters. These trace levels of waterborne chemicals have been documented to adversely affect the health of humans, especially small children.
Unfortunately, the health standards that determine how much and what levels of these toxins we are permitted to consume in our drinking water are all based on the potential effects on adults. These “Maximum Contaminant Levels” (MCLs) are also based on the false assumption that we are only exposed to one chemical at a time. We find every thing from gasoline additives to traces of prescription drugs from recycled wastewater in our public water systems. Often there are outbreaks of chlorine-resistant parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia in city water supplies. One need only recall the case of the recent Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee, WI, in which over 100 people died and 400,000 more became sick, to understand the gravity of the situation. Cryptosporidium is an intestinal parasite that causes flu-like symptoms, but it can be fatal to children and the elderly.
Childhood asthma, cancer, leukemia and immune disorders have all risen in the last decade. Many experts now suggest that this increase in disease is due to children’s increased exposure to environmental toxins and the decreased ability of their body to detox. Water plays a major role in a child’s exposure to pollutants and in his or her body’s ability to purge these pollutants.
Children consume three times as much water per pound of body weight than adults; thus, they receive a larger dose of the chemicals in the water, and their developing bodies are simply much more sensitive.
An increased intake of pure, healthy water is one of the easiest and best ways to help promote good health for our children.
As adults, we are all free to safeguard the quality of our water or to take risks with our own health. Choosing to protect our children’s health is an instinctive responsibility, and water plays a major role in that protection.
"The human body is over 70% water; it is a common sense equation that the quality of the water we drink will have a major impact on our health."
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