Hollow eyes? Tired, Irritable? Maybe you're just not drinking enough water. In the week of the second National Drink Water Day, Barry Nelson looks at why we should all be getting into H2O.

NOT long ago drinking bottled water was something that foreigners did in hot, sunny places. Now, slowly but surely, people in dear, damp old Britain are drinking more water, even if thrifty Northerners prefer it free from the tap rather than shelling out £1 for a plastic bottle of fizz.

In 2003 alone, more than one billion litres of mineral water will be sold in the UK. To show how far we have come we can compare the nine litres of bottled water we bought annually per person ten years ago to the 27 litres per head we drink today. But we are still a long way behind many Europeans: the Italians drink around 120 litres per person.

This growing interest in drinking water as a healthy alternative to other beverages has helped North-East company Ebac grow from a garden shed to a multi-million pound factory employing 400 people.

Since entering the market for water coolers in 1994 - after making humidifiers since 1972 - the Bishop Auckland company has become the European market leader for commercial water coolers.

It also led to North-East company Northumbrian Spring organising a seminar for local education authorities, education action zones and primary care trusts in the region last month to promote the value of school water coolers.

Experts say that children who do not drink enough water can suffer from poor concentration at school. Our bodies are mostly made up of water and subtle changes in the amount of fluid in our system can cause adverse symptoms. There are also hopes that children can be weaned off sugary soft drinks which can damage growing teeth.

Ebac has joined forces with Northumbrian Spring to put a new type of child-friendly water coolers into more schools. So far 31 coolers have gone into 11 North-East schools, and there are plans to expand elsewhere in the region. A cartoon character called Dennis Drinkwater is helping Northumbrian Spring to persuade kids that water is cool.

Dr Antony Moore, a Newcastle GP who was one of the independent medical speakers at the education seminar, says: "There is a lot of evidence that many schoolchildren are chronically dehydrated. Research by water filter makers Brita suggest that 67 per cent of schoolchildren aged between five and 14 drink less than the recommended level of fluid. The same survey suggests that 21 per cent, more than one in five, drink no water at all." Mild dehydration in children and adults causes headaches, lethargy, irritability and a 20 per cent reduction in the ability to do things like mental arithmetic, Dr Moore adds.

According to the World Health Organisation, we should all be drinking at least six to eight glasses of water a day if we want to remain healthy.

And if we drink lots of tea, coffee, certain kinds of soft drinks, which are diuretic or 'water stealing' drinks because of their tendency to make us want to pee, washing out vital salts and minerals the body needs, the WHO suggests we should increase our water intake.

Water for Health, the umbrella organisation set up by UK water companies, points to scientific research which shows that even moderate dehydration can effect our ability to concentrate.

A level of two per cent body dehydration produced a "highly significant" deterioration in volunteers given arithmetic tests by researchers. A loss of more than ten per cent of body weight through dehydration can become life-threatening.

According to Water for Health the early signs of dehydration includes sunken features (particularly the eyes) headaches, tiredness, loss of appetite, flushed skin, heat intolerance, light-headedness and a tendency to produce smaller amounts of darker-coloured urine.

The National Kidney Research Fund argues for greater water consumption for rather different reasons. This national organisation, which aims to raise funds to combat kidney disease held its second ever National Drink Water Day on Tuesday.

Says Professor John Feehally, of the University Hospital of Leicester: "Encouraging people to drink more water through National Drink Water Day is a great prevention message, as a high fluid intake can reduce the risk of urinary infections and bladder cancer as well as kidney stones."

The Kidney Fund suggests that we can all tell whether we are drinking enough water to stay healthy by simply checking the colour of our urine.

Very pale urine is a good sign. If it is dark in colour and you pass urine infrequently, you could be putting your kidneys under strain. If you start drinking more water, you should notice a change in colour a few days later.

For children, the Kidney Fund recommends that they should also drink between six to eight glasses of water a day, while pre-school children should have about four glasses. Parents should try to encourage young children to drink water, milk or diluted fruit juice rather than fizzy drinks, which often contain caffeine and cause dehydration. Very young children and babies should not be given sparkling water, though, as this can cause discomfort.

Coffee drinkers who prefer strong, dark espresso should copy our Mediterranean neighbours, who drink a glass of water with their coffee.

The fund also suggests that anyone who suffers from digestive problem would do well to avoid fizzy water, otherwise it just a matter of personal taste.

John Elliott, chairman of Ebac, is looking forward to the day when water coolers are in most schools. "Children love to use a dispensing machine and that taste of icy, chilled water is proving as enticing as fizzy drinks," he says.

WIN A WATER COOLER

Ebac makes a range of water coolers to suit offices, schools and homes and Mr Elliott is proud of the fact that their machines are ultra-clean because of a special design feature which allows most of the internal plastic water dispensing equipment to be discarded and replaced with a completely sterile unit every time the cooler is serviced.

The company is also hoping that the American trend of having water coolers at home will catch on in the UK.

To meet this demand the company have produced a compact cooler called Eddy, a unit which is designed to take standard five or six litre bottles of water and provides cold water on demand but only takes up a small amount of worktop space. Eddy coolers are now available at almost 300 Homebase, Focus Do-It-All and other department stores and independent retailers around the country.

Costing around £79.95 the silver-coloured coolers will soon be available by mail order on the web from Ebac: www.ebac.com

We have an Ebac water cooler to give away to one thirsty reader. Just tell us which year Ebac entered the commercial water cooler market.

Answers on a post card or back of a sealed envelope to Ebac Competition, Features, the Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DLA 1NF. Usual competition rules apply and the closing date is Friday, June 13.