Forget searching for The Fountain of Youth, all you need is right here in the bottle, which is being dubbed as the new Elixir of Life. From the UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO and the “overworked kidneys: department comes this odd study with an even odder claim. I don’t know about you, but bottled water has been solely about convenience in situations where water isn’t always easily available, such as camping and outdoor activities. OTOH climate protagonist Peter Gleick has made a career out of hating bottled water, so perhaps that explains why he acts and looks as he does.
Bottled water sales fueled by desire for immortality
A fear of dying plays a role in people buying bottled water, even though they know it may not be good for them or the planet, a study from the University of Waterloo has found.
The study suggests that most bottled-water advertising campaigns target a deep psychological vulnerability in humans, compelling them to buy and consume particular products. Bottled water ads specifically trigger our most subconscious fear — driving Canadians to buy billions of litres of water annually.
“Bottled water advertisements play on our greatest fears in two important ways,” says Stephanie Cote, who conducted the research while a graduate student at Waterloo. “Our mortality fears make us want to avoid risks and, for many people, bottled water seems safer somehow, purer or controlled.
“There is also a deeper subconscious force at work here, one that caters to our desire for immortality.”
In 2013, according to a report by Euromonitor, Canadians bought 2.4 billion liters of bottled water. In 2018, that amount is expected to rise to three billion liters worth CAD$3.3 billion, despite ongoing and energetic anti-bottled water campaigns.
The study used social psychology’s Terror Management Theory (TMT) as its framework. TMT researchers argue that people’s efforts to repress conscious and unconscious fear of death generates specific defenses that influence behaviours such as consumption choices, the accumulation of wealth, and status security.
The research team analyzed data drawn from the content of bottled water campaigns and advertisements, websites, photographs, and videos that revealed implicit and explicit meanings. They also examined how anti-bottled water campaigns have trouble competing with corporate bottled water messaging.
“Our results demonstrate that corporate campaigns appeal to people who measure their personal value by their physical appearance, fitness levels, material and financial wealth, class, and status,” said Sarah Wolfe, a researcher in Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment. “Pro-bottle water advertisements rely heavily on branding, celebrity, and feel-good emotions that trigger our group identities and patriotism.
“If public and non-governmental organizations were interested in promoting the benefits of municipal drinking water systems, they’re going to need to use new tactics that are emotionally stirring and speak to more than just the financial, ethical and environmental benefits of tap water.”
The study, titled: Evidence of mortality salience and psychological defenses in bottled water campaigns, appeared in the Journal Applied Environmental Education & Communication. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1533015X.2017.1399836?journalCode=ueec20
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As usual, the major assumption of this study is pure nonsense – attempting to live a healthy life by drinking bottled water does NOT equate to anything having to do with desires for immortality.
I grew up on rain or borewater and never got crook from either unfiltered.
my present bore is heavy in iron and ?what else is a mystery as well as 2kppm salt so its drinkable in small volume or desperation only. my tank water is as it ends up in the tank- leaves mud and birdpoop as “exciting” additions. i dont have any problems but i do tend to boil water i drink because…coffee/tea needs that;-)
ive probably only ever bought a dozen bottled waters for the dogs bowls while travelling
“There is also a deeper subconscious force at work here, one that caters to our desire for immortality.”
No Stephanie. A whole bunch of Greenies kept drumming into a few generations that they had polluted the planet so much it was very easy for supply to rush in and meet that demand. The same can be said of the oxymoron of organic food, the rise of vegetarianism and veganism plus all those plastic containers of vitamins and so called natural remedies and supplements now lining the supermarket shelves. You plug a religious cult long enough and often enough and there will be followers observing the rituals and social mores observing the penance that goes hand in glove with it all and absolution in the afterlife when they’ve all had their Soylent Green.
It’s just a typical mass reaction as the new mantra hits home (albeit with some initial veracity under the circumstances) but it always leads to an emotional overreaction and people going overboard long after the initial threat has passed- https://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/Nature_Rebounds.pdf
If you want to curb bottled water, etc then first you have to stop frightening school kiddies about how they’ve drastically polluted their environment to begin with. They’ll grow up thinking they’ll explode or a polar bear will fall on their head if it doesn’t come officially labelled Gaia approved for their bodily shrine.
“The same can be said of the oxymoron of organic food, the rise of vegetarianism and veganism plus all those plastic containers of vitamins and so called natural remedies and supplements now lining the supermarket shelves. You plug a religious cult long enough and often enough and there will be followers observing the rituals and social mores observing the penance that goes hand in glove with it all and absolution in the afterlife when they’ve all had their Soylent Green.”
Oh dear! Doesn’t that translate to you will only eat what I deem you should eat, and consume the medicines I deem appropriate? Them who exercise choice are religious and them handing out the orders aren’t?
I don’t care what expensive water or gobbledegook people want to stick down their throats as tap water and a healthy array of cooked and fresh tucker will do me just fine for all the sustenance I need. Looking around it seems the problem’s too much of it rather than any shortcoming requiring special additives. Just saying if the Greenies have a problem with bottled water, reap what you sow with your environmental hysterics.
“a healthy array of cooked and fresh tucker will do me just fine for all the sustenance I need. Looking around it seems the problem’s too much of it rather than any shortcoming requiring special additives.”
I think your problem’s being unable to see that individual’s needs are different to yours. Example: I suffer from chronic osteoarthritis, a condition that causes constant though varying levels of pain. It’s a degenerative disease, so with time it gets worse. Note that I’m not seeking sympathy here; it just happens to be a fact for me and many, many people on this planet.\
Conventional medicine provides a partial solution, a class of drugs called NSAIDs. They are quite effective, but have a range of unwanted side effects: stomach bleeding, kidney damage… Steroidal anti-inflammatories OTOH while more effective at pain relief knock out the auto-immune system and cause fluid accumulation in body tissue. If like me you have congestive heart failure then you are combating excessive fluid accumulation to avoid dying.
Alternatively, curcumin[1], an extract of turmeric (responsible for the yellow colour of many Indian curries) is an anti-inflammatory at least as effective as NSAIDs. And yes, even though it’s one of the off-the-supermarket-shelf substances you excoriate because you don’t need it, it has several side-effects. It suppresses a number of cancers, reduces the preconditions for type 2 diabetes and healthy tissue necrosis adjacent to burns. Curcumin has been in use in India for several thousand years and your assertion that its recent appearance on Western supermarket shelves is due to some greenie conspiracy is, to say the least, hilarious.
[1] Curcumin is but one example of what are called CAM. Complementary and alternative medicines. Their rise is actually due to the almost complete failure of conventional medicine to effectively treat chronic disease. CAMs are rarely used in the West to treat acute problems. Some 80 percent of the world’s population are too poor to afford anything else. But as you say, you don’t care what other people need.
The mythical spring of eternal life or the scientific practice of Planned Parenthood and recycled-child. A clear and progressive minority seem to prefer the latter.
How exactly do they know what our subconscious wants? And how do they they then know what appeals to it?
Madison Avenue executives have figured it out. And with the explosion of social media, the public has been more than willing to supply the manipulators with information about everything…for free!
True, not everybody behaves exactly the same way, but just as I will never know the exact trajectory of any specific air molecule, that’s not important as long as I can measure which way the wind is blowing.
Three of the greatest advancements in technology for humans that have extended our average longevity were (1) agriculture, (2) separating domestic sewage from drinking water (we have had to learn that one more than several times) and (3) vaccines. Even though this study claims people, or at least the companies want people to, choose bottle water for immortality that doesn’t explain why there are major movements attacking “modern” agriculture and vaccines.
Even here in Canada there are thousands of places with no available clean potable water, outdoor areas, campgrounds, even workplaces with no potable water, so we buy bottled water to take with us. The municipalities with good potable water tell us to keep a decent supply of bottled water on hand just in case of potable water quality or supply problems.
Maybe I’m just old school, but when I went to work (in the outdoors) I would bring a container full of enough water to get me thru the day, then next day I would refill the same container with water.
I left no litter, and didn’t have to pay the 2,000% premium for store bought water, and it was just as wet.
with the advent of cheap and simple to operate UV LED’s we are due to enter a new era of good water but this time distributed through the population and free of chlorination which unfortunately has bad press, I struggle to taste it.
Unfortunately, UV just creates a different bunch of novel organic molecules, most with as yet unknown effect. Better methinks to reduce the organic matter content to the point where sterilisation is unnecessary. YMMV of course. Feel free to drink water with bacteria dead, or alive and Bondi cigars. I’ll go with straight H2O.
FWIW the water I collect costs considerably less than the municipal water I provide my tenants in town.
i’ve been using a Steripen for backcountry water since it came out as a product about15 years ago. It renders the little critters sterile, it doesn’t kill them outright such as happens with chemical oxidation methods. Sterilization is what I assume is happening with any UV water treatment. That doesn’t bother me a bit. In California at least there is a strict limit on “organic matter” too. Our private well company (old well) fails this limit on a regular basis and we are forced to colorinate our wonderful Pleistocene fossil water .
UV
I appreciate being able to buy a bottle of water that is acceptable for taste, mineral content, clarity, and even smell and viscosity. I well remember in the 60’s and 70’s sampling various town and rural waters while on road and bicycle trips. You balanced your thirst against your sensibilities.
“You balanced your thirst against your sensibilities.”
For me it was more than thirst against sensibilities when travelling in Bali back in those days. I had been warned to always eat chilies with raw food and on one occasion there weren’t any. I ended up with the worst case of dysentery I’ve ever suffered. The natives gave me a plantain (type of banana) studded with live head-lice to eat. It was a prolonged struggle to overcome my revulsion, and cause for considerable mirth among the locals, but I eventually succeeded and within a remarkably short time my dysentery was cured.
And for me Baja – no non-bottled anything and no fresh vegetables. Sometimes it’s hard to decline really well intentioned offerings, I suffered every time I went against my misgivings.
It seems that Capetown is facing a dire water situation in the near future, unless the water gods bring rain. …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENoOZWNKQJo
A lot of products nowadays capitalize on the idea of aligning virtue with good health.
“Honest” tea, “Ethos” water at Starbucks, etc.
We threw out God and we have recreated “virtue.” We are simply repeating the act of denying and recreating God as happened at Babel.
This makes these virtuous / responsible / ethical appeals work.