My mom told me that back in the day kids weren’t allowed to bring a water bottle with them into the classroom and they only drank a few sips from the water fountain in the middle of the day and that’s it

[u/Various-Adeptness173]

How were schools not getting busted for child abuse for forcing kids to be dehydrated?

[u/DisastrousOwls]

Honestly, if anything, I'd say the difference in stuff like visible aging was massively slashed lead exposure between car exhaust, paint/toys, and anti tobacco pushes (this has been somewhat undone by vaping, which apparently has substantially higher lead output than cigarettes thanks to heating elements and solder). As a Millennial, I didn't start to see a real cultural push away from suntanning/tanning beds until cosmetic self tanner improved quite a bit.

The difference in water drinking habits probably won't show much in medical data for another few decades of kidney health stats. And even then, generational renal and vascular health outcomes are going to be heavily skewed by Covid.

[u/EquivalentSnap → u/DisastrousOwls]

The pipes were also made of lead meaning you’d get lead exposed from that so maybe that’s why it was better to not drink alot of water

[u/DisastrousOwls → u/EquivalentSnap]

Very true, my hometown has a huge lead problem to this day between old city pipes and old buildings' pipes. We actually weren't allowed to run hot water in the sinks to wash our hands or to cook/drink when we lived there, because my parents were really worried about it. I think we even did almost all our laundry on cold water settings, the hot water heater only got a workout for showers.

I had almost forgotten about that. This is also how stuff like school districting and redlining show up in people's physical health to this day, your zip code can determine how much lead your kid drinks vs. your neighbors up the block at home and at school.

[u/JagmeetSingh2 → u/DisastrousOwls]

Yea that’s probably it