Healthy hydration must be part of Wales’s health plans

Kinvara Carey, General Manager of the Natural Source Waters Association.

Both the Welsh and the UK governments have rightly put preventative health at the heart of their strategies to improve public health.

Public Health Wales have placed promoting healthy behaviours third on their list of six priorities in Working Together for a Healthier Wales. Despite this there remains a glaring gap: healthy hydration.

Drinking habits are routinely sidelined in health strategies and messaging, yet new data reveals a worrying lack of understanding in Wales around the impact of what people drink.

Recent research[1] found that many people in Wales overlook drinks as a major contributor to sugar and calorie consumption. It found that around 20% of Welsh adults thought that ‘as long as I am eating healthily, it doesn’t matter what I drink’.

Three glasses

Most Welsh adults drink three glasses of water or fewer each day. In contrast, 56% of adults have two or more glasses of juice, or tea or coffee with added sugar and 26% of Welsh adults have two or more glasses of full sugar soft drinks or energy drinks each day. 41% of Welsh adults say they never check the nutritional content of what they drink.

The latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey, published in June 2025, estimates that teenagers could be consuming between 50-270 kcal a day and adult men 45-345 kcal a day from sugar-sweetened soft drinks.

That’s why the Natural Source Waters Association, along with our members, who in Wales include Brecon Carreg, Tŷ Nant and Princes Gate, have launched a new campaign to highlight the vital importance of promoting healthy hydration.

Our manifesto, Flowing Forward: Tackling the Hydration Gap to Help Transform Health Outcomes, puts forward the case for the Government to take action on three key areas:

• Information on healthy hydration to be included in all public health messaging and policy, promoting water as the healthiest choice of drink
• Positive incentives to support consumers in making healthier drink choices, as well as discouraging less healthy ones
• A nationwide awareness campaign to position healthy hydration alongside good nutrition in public consciousness

With obesity-related diseases costing the NHS billions and contributing to more than 30,000 deaths annually and a recent study by the Royal Society for Public Health showing childhood obesity is set to worsen in 90% of the country, comprehensive preventative health interventions have never been more urgent. We urge the Welsh government to broaden their scope of the health strategy and recognise the important role of healthy hydration in all government and official health messaging.

Regulations

Whilst the Welsh Government have set out their regulations on HFSS (certain products classified as high in fat, salt or sugar) which come into force next year, little is being to promote healthier choices in their place. We would encourage the Welsh Government to consider working in partnership with producers, retailers and charities to promote healthy options, especially when it comes to drinks, recognising water as the healthier choice of drink on the shelf.

As we approach the 2026 Welsh elections, we call on all parties to include measures to promote healthy hydration as part of their plan to promote public health and take steps to encourage healthier choices. The current approach includes important measures, but it misses out on a key opportunity.

It’s time to recognise that healthy hydration is not optional – it’s essential.

[1] Censuswide, June 2025, 2,000 respondents, nationally representative