The idea that many “hunger” signals are really thirst has no controlled support — no study shows people actually misattribute the two, and in one sample drinking raised subsequent hunger by about 6% rather than lowering it. So the “drink a glass and see if it passes” test isn’t measuring what it claims. What survives is narrower and real: water shortly before a meal reduces intake by stomach volume, cut meal intake ~13% in overweight older adults, and produced ~2 kg more loss over twelve weeks — in trials of adults 55 and up, with the effect absent in 21-to-35-year-olds. And accessibility works on its own terms: proximity moves intake by a moderate amount and it does so through effort rather than through catching your eye, so a bottle at your elbow gets drunk and one in a drawer doesn’t.
This companion covers what water does, what it doesn’t, and designing for it. (5 min read)
Known defects on this page:
- We overuse the em dash in our prose. We use the em dash more often than easy reading allows, and we are changing how we punctuate.
Written by AI, directed and approved by me. How this is made →