A cartoonish sound of a water bottle being opened and three young people desperately drinking from it make up the video that has sparked controversy between American and European users on TikTok. In it, the user @br3nnak3ough, who was traveling through the old continent, describes the situation with this sentence: “We when we find water because Europeans don’t believe in water.”
The video, which has already accumulated more than 10 million views and more than 12,000 comments, suggests that we, Europeans, drink much less water than Americans. In fact, some users of the social network have come to joke about the content of the video, going so far as to ensure that “drinking water in Europe is illegal” while they posted a video drinking a glass of wine.
Other comments also directly criticize the behavior of American tourists in Europe: “People are too dramatic. There are markets/shops everywhere and a bottle of water is cheaper than in the US. They have water in restaurants.”
For their part, other American Internet users have joined the discussion, assuring that it is true that in Europe people drink considerably less water than in the United States. User @ditchthedistrict, for example, who was also on a trip to the old continent, has posted a video in which she says: “Wherever I go, I am drinking the same amount of water as the other three people at the table combined.”
Are the Americans right and are we Europeans really dehydrated? According to the European Commission, “water intake in European countries is below the recommended or guideline values”. The agency also ensures that “most countries consume less than 1 liter a day of non-alcoholic liquid, with the exception of Austria, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom.” If we take into account that this entity recommends drinking between 1.5 and 2 liters of non-alcoholic liquid a day, we find that, indeed, we could hydrate ourselves better.
In the United States, the Mayo Clinic hospital system instead recommends that its citizens consume 3.7 liters of water per day in the case of men, and 2.7 liters for women, more than 1 liter of difference compared to what is recommended by the European Commission.
With the arrival of a new heat wave, one of the main tips is to stay hydrated to avoid decompensation due to high temperatures. However, it is not about going to extremes and starting to drink water all the time, since this can also have detrimental effects on our health.
