With schools out for summer and temperatures rising, many kids will be spending their days at the local pool or lake. As families head to the water, one aquatic education group is sharing an important PSA that some parents and caregivers may not have heard before: the color of your child’s swimsuit can actually play an important role in water and pool safety.
Best swimsuit colors for safety and visibility
Alive Solutions Inc., a group that specializes in water safety training and education, tested more than a dozen different colored swimsuits to show how difficult they may be to spot in different bodies of water. The final verdict? Neon colors offer some of the best visibility in all water conditions.
Swimsuits were tested in pools with both a light and a dark bottom. In a light-bottomed pool, the group reports that neon pink and orange swimsuits offer the best visibility under the water, while the colors white and blue performed the worst.
Similar results were seen in the dark-bottomed pool test, where neon yellow, pink and green came out as the top three swimsuit color options. Blues and grays almost disappeared completely.
Swimsuits were also tested in a lake at a depth of 18 inches. In this setting, neon yellow, green and orange performed the best, though all of the swimsuits became difficult to see once the water was about two feet deep.
“Water can perform a magic trick of making things disappear,” a post on the company’s Instagram explains. “We hear in drowning events that the responder thought the person was a shadow, a towel or a pile of leaves on the bottom, when in reality it was a person and the water was playing a trick on us. This can cause a delay in response or a lack of response.”
Other crucial pool and water safety tips
Drowning is a leading cause of death for children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and kids are most at-risk between the ages of 1-4. Natalie Livingston, a water safety educator and the co-founder of Alive Solutions Inc., says that while most parents are aware of common water safety tips, like supervising kids in the pool and teaching them how to swim, there are several other things parents and caregivers can do to help kids stay safe, including:
- Teaching kids how to gauge depth versus their height.
- Using life jackets.
- Limiting access to water with proper barriers or fences.
- Being selective about who is allowed to supervise kids in the water.
- Teaching kids how to get away if another swimmer grabs onto them.
One of the most important tools to prevent accidents is to make sure you can see kids at all times. “Visibility is key,” Livingston says. “This means bright swimwear and water clarity.”
Busy lakes and pools can create chaotic conditions that make it difficult to keep an eye on young kids. A neon or brightly colored swimsuit is one more tool that can make it easier for adults to spot signs of trouble and increase kids’ chances of staying safe.
