10 Summary

This week you learned that hydration is very important for your mental function and physiological processes.

You should now be able to understand:

• what hydration is required physiologically, including what hydration is and how much you need
• how much and what you drink and whether it is enough
• dehydration and its consequences
• exercise and hydration
• whether alcohol is part of your fluid intake.

Water is the only fluid you are advised to drink freely. But you can have too much fluid, which causes hyponatremia. The recommended daily oral fluid intake for adults is 1.6 litres for women and 2 litres for men.

You also learned that approximately 20–30% of your fluid requirements come from food, which means women have 2 litres and men have 2.5 litres overall.

You also looked at dehydration, which is defined as 1% or greater loss of body mass due to fluid loss.

The simplest way to check your hydration level is from the colour of your urine.

Next week, you will look at food labels. You will find out how manufacturers measure and communicate what is in your food. This is particularly important to people who have allergies and food intolerances. You will also carry out an experiment to discover how much energy is in a peanut.

You will end the week by looking at how much of each nutrient you should be consuming and thinking about what makes a healthy snack.

You can now go to Week 4.