Summer means spending more time with our families in and around the water: at the pool, at the beach, on a boat… That’s why it’s important for everyone—but especially for parents of young children—to take every possible precaution around water.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drowning is the second leading cause of death among children aged 1 to 4 years.
In our guide to drowning prevention, there is one factor that is often overlooked but is worth keeping in mind when taking children swimming this summer, and that is none other than the color of their swimsuits.
Alive Solutions, an organization specializing in water safety, conducted an informal study in 2020 to determine how visible different swimsuit colors are in pools with light-colored bottoms, pools with dark bottoms, and lakes.
For the swimming pools, they tested how the swimsuits looked when slightly submerged below the water’s surface (top row) and then again at the bottom (bottom row) from the perspective of a person standing near the pool.
In the case of the lake, the organization tested different swimsuit colors on the water’s surface (top row), from a perspective on the shore (middle row) and from an elevated vantage point (bottom row) to simulate the view of an adult standing in a boat or on a nearby dock. The lake was only two and a half meters deep.
«We’re conducting research on drowning incidents, and we know that visibility is key to early detection and prevention,» explains Natalie Livingston, co-founder of Alive Solutions. «As lifeguards and water sports professionals, we know that there are certain factors that make a person more or less visible underwater.».
«With this information in mind, we started looking at swimsuits for our children and realized that many parents buy their children very nice and trendy swimsuits, but this will cause their children to disappear under the water in no time,» explains the expert.
Neon colors—also known as fluorescent colors—are the ones that stand out the most in both swimming pools and lakes. In open-bottom pools, pink and fluorescent orange stood out the most, while white and light blue swimsuits stood out the least. Dark colors like purple and black looked good, but they aren’t recommended because they can be mistaken for sea debris, leaves, or shadows.
In lakes and swimming pools with dark bottoms, fluorescent orange, fluorescent green, and fluorescent yellow were the most visible. In contrast, the pink glow-in-the-dark color was not visible enough in the lake. The white color was visible, but it could easily be mistaken for light reflecting off the water’s surface, so it is also not recommended.
The goal of the research was not only to teach us to be more visible, but also to show us how difficult it can be to see through water. »It’s not like looking through the air,” says Livingston. «In general, fluorescent colors ranked higher in all categories.».
It is also worth noting that in the lake, at a depth of just 60 centimeters, visibility dropped to zero for all tested colors—a good reminder of how important it is to wear life jackets in open water to keep swimmers afloat.
It should also be noted that life jackets are a safety measure. Flippers, snorkels, infant floats, and other inflatable devices are not. Children aged 5 and under should also wear life jackets in swimming pools if the adult supervising them is not «available to the child at all times,» explains the National Drowning Prevention Alliance.
The color of our child's swimsuit is meaningful when considered in conjunction with all other necessary safety measures.
Mario Vitone, a former Coast Guard drowning specialist, asserts that taking the visibility of swimsuit colors into account ”isn’t a bad idea” and that avoiding white, blue, or light blue is a sensible decision, but he is reluctant to confirm that fluorescent swimsuits are «safer.».
«If the color of the swimsuit becomes a factor, drowning has most likely already occurred. Being able to easily spot a child at the bottom of the water is good, but obviously it’s better not to let them get there in the first place,» Vitone points out.
«»A child in a light blue swimsuit who has taken swimming lessons and is swimming in a well-supervised pool is safer than a child in a fluorescent yellow swimsuit who has not taken swimming lessonsin a pool supervised by a lifeguard who never swims,” he concludes.
