Students across the Island will be soaking up a healthy lifestyle today by drinking only water to mark the International World Water Day.

It's part of the Healthy Schools initiative, organised and run by Marie Beach the Government's Healthy Schools coordinator, which hopes to start healthy lifestyles early.

So today, all students will be encouraged to drink water and only water for the entire day.

The initiative was made possible because of the reverse osmosis process and regular cleaning of the schools' tanks.

Historically students in public schools would not drink the water because the galvanised pipes made the water appear unappetizing, according to Ms Beach.

With the osmosis system and tank cleaning on a regular basis, students are using water fountains and consuming the school's water on a regular basis.

Now, Ms Beach said she hopes the students will use today to focus on their health and drink nothing but water all day.

She said: "The World Water Day is on Saturday, but we are doing it on Monday. It's on of the recognised health topics.

"We could look at the water table, the water we consume every day, but this was our way to highlight our little piece. Our bodies are 75 percent water and in order to be healthy you have to drink water to eliminate waste each day. If you drink water you will decrease weight by eliminating liquid in our tissues."

Limiting your water intake is much like starving the body of food — your body will compensate by holding onto more liquid.

Drinking water also helps to increase metabolism and for anyone trying to lose weight or maintain weight, that's a good thing. But today is more than just about health, it is being used to highlight the need for sanitary drinking water, which is the theme this year.

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

March 22 was designated World Day for Water by the UN General Assembly and has been observed since 1993 and this year they declared the International Year of Sanitation (IYS).