"Drinking Water: Cool Stuff for Hot Times"
Abstract
Water is the healthy alternative to sugary beverages – but there are times and places when tap water is not safe to drink, and access to water in public spaces is not always easy or appealing. The recently released 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s Scientific Report calls for Americans to reduce sugars from 10% to 6% or less of caloric intake. Americans can take a big bite out of their added sugars consumption by drinking water in place of sugary beverages – how can we make that happen?
With the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans under development, infrastructure needs on the federal agenda, reauthorization of the federal child nutrition act overdue, and equity issues in the forefront, an understanding of drinking water issues is timely. The presentation will include health, environment and equity issues of beverage choice. It will provide a framework to understand what’s needed to enable consumption of water in place of sugary beverages, using the school setting as an example. It will review key policy avenues to boost water consumption and will end with a call to action every attendee can take immediately.
Speaker Bio
Christina Hecht is Senior Policy Advisor at Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI), University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the state-wide arm of the university system. Dr. Hecht’s primary focus is on healthy beverages and she leads NPI’s work in drinking water safety, access and promotion. She is a co-investigator in current research on drinking water and is active in multiple collaborative projects. She co-ordinates the National Drinking Water Alliance, a network of individuals and organizations across the United States working to ensure that all children in the U.S. can drink water in the places where they live, learn and play. Dr. Hecht graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Human Biology, and from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health with a PhD in Population Dynamics.