It's like running a race without drinking. The body literally shuts down from overheating..the muscles lock up. Do the math..an adult, in a hot climate, doing physical exertion, probably requires at a MINIMUM 2qts of water a per, if not more. No way can they get that much from coconuts or licking leaves.. Maybe they are drinking their own urine? FYI...it's quite safe to do so, though un pleasant tasting. It's a basic survival technique.
Technically, it hasn’t been over a week, but I get your point.
If you remember, days 1 through 3 they spent together as one tribe of 19.
Each player is given a canteen which they take with them as their “personnel belongings”.
Therefore, it was halfway through day 3 before they were split into 2 tribes and that night they sent Jessica packing. So even if they were completely insane and guzzled all their water during that half day of day 3, they have only been without water for days 4, 5 and 6 (when they booted Erica.)
Tonight will show days 7, 8 and 9 and we don’t exactly know which of these days Michelle is supposed to start a fire with her glasses.
But like I said, I see your point about the production company’s liability. (Which may be why some spoiler sites are saying that the pineapple patch that Ravu found was intentionally placed there by the procuders.)