What your water bottle says about you: 'Drink more water' may be a mantra for the young but older generations remain sceptical. Francesca Hornak unscrews the lid on the modern obsession with hydration

• Members of Gen Z are rarely seen without a gallon of water by their side
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Drinking from a bottle of Boots Brecon Carreg water recently, I noticed in tiny capitals the message: ‘Stay Hydrated. Stay Protected.’

Protected from what, exactly? Thirst, presumably. But the slogan implied something more ominous. Dangerous levels of dehydration, perhaps, and scarily dark pee? Burnout, from lugging a two-litre bottle of water everywhere? The AI apocalypse?

It’s not surprising, though, that someone decided to slap this warning on Boots labels, given that the phrase ‘emotional support water bottle’ is widely used on TikTok, and other drivers and mirrors of Gen-Z culture.

In therapy-speak, massive water bottles have become Gen Z’s ‘transitional object’ of choice. Thus, an industrial-sized canister offers the same security as a comfort blanket might bring a child.

True evangelists will also refer to their ‘hydration journey’ – aka deciding and managing to drink more water than they used to. This will be achieved via a pastel-coloured barrel (a popular goal is 3.7 litres per day) and an app to remind them to #sip, in case their brain is too diluted to do the job. 

Of course, it’s essential that this journey ends in the epiphany that you were 100 per cent right to drink more water, and not that you have created a rod for your own back with your now incessant pit stops.

Besides offering so much Freudian support, ‘oversize water bottle’ is also a trend, much like the massive handbags favoured by millennials in 2006. There’s an entire hierarchy of bottles that goes well beyond aesthetics (or claims to). 

Witness the frenzy caused by the Owala FreeSip in May, whose USP – confusingly – is that you can ‘sip from it upright using the straw’, or ‘chug it down’. 

Isn’t this true of any vessel and straw? Apparently not – the bottle sparked a TikTok frenzy as the favourite adult sippy cup in the US.

In other words, there is no greater signifier of youth than carting around a gallon of water at all times – and, conversely, nothing as ageing as a 250ml single-use plastic vessel. 

Water-bottle size and age now run in inverse proportion, and as such you will probably find you fit into one of the groups below. Gulp…

THE UNDER-NINES 

Despite the fact that your millennial mother painstakingly selects and hand-washes your tea-coloured Scandinavian water bottle (Liewood or Oyoy), you bring it back from school unopened, on principle. 

Eventually, when you have lost the third £25 bottle, or it has leaked in your book bag, your mother will give up and switch to garish Sistema Twist ’n’ Sip caps instead, hoping that they are indeed ‘BPA free’.

GEN Z 

Your water bottle functions as social media prop, IRL accessory and as a kind of adult mascot. The bigger the better, preferably a 2.2-litre canister with motivational reminders to ‘drink up’ on the side. 

Cult brands include Hydrate XL and Fuel24 costing up to £25 each. A meagre 500ml bottle is only tolerated if it’s Love Island merch, monogrammed with your own name, obviously. 

You partake in competitive pale peeing and experience a kind of euphoria if your urine is transparent.

MILLENNIALS

You are always nagging other people to drink more water (your parents, children, husband), and may experience Gen Z-like anxiety during the liquid-free minutes between security and departures in airports. 

You are content with a moderate-sized bottle, though, because you have so much else to carry around (sanitiser, YoYo Bears, Water Wipes, your kids’ untouched water bottles). 

You still believe that water consumption equals ageless skin, despite a sinking feeling – as you approach 40 – that the supermodels who started this myth in your teens were lying.

GEN X

You can’t help associating hearty water-glugging with your glory days in Ibiza or illegal raves in mid-90s mud.

Still, you do your best to be more Goop by diligently refilling your Bobble bottle from the Quooker tap, particularly when WFH hungover or gagging on Lyma supplements. 

Your Gen Z child’s water bottle, and attendant anxiety, is as baffling to you as everything else about them.

BABY BOOMERS 

If you’re a youngish boomer you will probably have a couple of Chilly’s 260ml refillable bottles at the back of a kitchen cupboard – in a nod to climate change, and to appease your adult daughter.

But you would only actually take one of them to a yoga class as a kind of youthful accessory, and certainly wouldn’t start noisily opening and sipping from one in the theatre during the key scene where hearing all the dialogue is essential.

THE SILENT GENERATION 

There’s water in tea.