When it comes to choosing a healthy beverage to quench your thirst, few beverages can compare with convenient, safe, zero-calorie bottled water. It’s the healthy and smart packaged beverage choice.

When looking to make healthy lifestyle choices, one of the simplest changes you can make is to drink water instead of less-healthy sugary beverages. Choosing water – whether from the tap or in a bottle – is also the right choice for those who want to eliminate or moderate calories, sugar, caffeine, artificial flavors or colors, and other ingredients from their diet.

Drinking zero-calorie beverages, such as water, instead of sugar-sweetened drinks is regularly cited as a key component of a more healthful diet. In fact, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend the strategy of choosing water in place of sugar-sweetened beverages to reduce the intake of added sugars.

Bottled water is the No.1 packaged beverage in America for the sixth consecutive year because consumers are increasingly choosing bottled water instead of other, less healthy packaged drinks. For more than a decade, the majority of the growth in bottled water consumption relative to other beverages has come from people switching to bottled water from other less-healthy packaged drinks (66 percent since 2006). And 9 out of 10 Americans (91 percent) expect bottled water to be available wherever other drinks are sold, according to a survey conducted on behalf of IBWA by The Harris Poll.

People who make the switch from sugar-laden packaged beverages to bottled water are also helping the environment because not only are bottled water containers 100 percent recyclable (including the caps) but also they contain much less plastic than soda and other packaged beverages. Bottled water containers, on average, use 59 percent less PET plastic than other packaged beverages (9.89 grams vs. 23.9 grams for 16.9-ounce containers). Soft drinks and other sugary beverages need thicker plastic containers due to their carbonation and/or bottling processes.

With the United States facing high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, drinking water – bottled, filtered, or tap – is always a healthy decision. IBWA promotes the consumption of water from all sources to help the public make healthy hydration a part of their daily lives. And IBWA encourages consumers to pick bottled water as their packaged beverage of choice, whether at home, at the office, or on the go.