Snopes.com is a popular website for people who are unable to detect silly stuff that is passed around on the internet, email or sometimes finds it's way into newspapers, magazines or television.
I generally have a pretty good nose for that sort of thing so I'm not much of a fan of that site. I also have a problem with depending on any one source as the authority for complex issues. Snopes is good for "debunking" silly things like getting money for forwarding email via the Microsoft/AOL Giveaway
What they are not so good at is providing information about more complex topics outside the realm of internet-based urban legends. A case in point is the assertion by the editors of Snopes.com that the recommendation that we drink Eight Glasses of water a day is an urban legend.
It is certainly true that there is no hard and fast rule about how much water a person has to drink to be healthy. A roofer working in the hot sun, or someone riding in the Tour de France obviously needs more water than a desk jockey shuffling papers.
The problem with the Snopes.com article is that it is filled with misinformation - if you compare what they have to say with the National Institute of Health, Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic - to name a few sources that we would associate with giving us accurate medical health related information.
I think there is a lot to learn (in general) and it would be foolish to put your faith in any one person, website, book as having the answers. It would be even more foolish to use a non-medical non-peer reviewed source like Snopes to decide how much water we should drink.
Some people are able to figure out how much water to drink by incorporating adequate exercise and water into their life, until they reach a plateau in their feeling of well-being, other people who have done demanding physical activity (long distance bike rides, difficult hikes or climbing, hard labor) learn how important adequate hydration is and know how silly the assertions in the Snopes.com article are (that we could get adequate water from the food we eat for example)....without having to read anything from more reliable sources on this topic.
I think the problem is that whoever wrote that article for Snopes is not a nurse, doctor, nutritionist, athlete, or even particularly interested in health issues - assuming if they were they would have done adequate research. They "debunked" the rule that we all have to drink 8 glasses of water a day (calling it a medical myth), but in the process provided a page of misinformation or at least incomplete information that is apparently intended to discourage people from drinking water? I guess they proved that it isn't really true that we have to drink 8 glasses of water a day - Who cares? Who thought that was a fact to begin with?
Snopes is intended to inform people that they shouldn't believe everything they read, so I guess they fulfilled that mission.
There are a lot of good reasons to drink enough water and it would be silly to not do something that easy if it means we can feel better and do more.
I'm going to go get a cold class of water now.
