10 Ways Your Parents Lied To You About Your Body
10 Ways Your Parents Lied To You About Your Body
Add these 10 tables to the like of Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and other falsehoods we accepted as truth when we were young.
1. “You Will Ruin Your Eyes If You Read In Low Light!”
- Truth: Reading by moonlight, under the covers, or in otherwise low light won’t permanently affect your vision. It strains your eyes, making them tired and achy, but rest is just the thing to refresh them.
2. “You Lose All Your Body Heat Through Your Head!”
- Truth: Sure, heat rises, but you don’t lose heat through your head more than other parts of the body. Any exposed body part loses heat and reduces body temperature Proportionally. If it’s cold out, wearing a hat just keeps your head warmer.
3. “Drink 8 Glasses Of Water A Day”
- Truth: It’s not 8 glasses of water you need to consume each day but rather 8 glasses of fluid-be it juice, tea, milk, or even foods with fluids. The rule of thumb for ensuring you’re properly hydrated: If you’re thirsty, have a drink.
4. “If You Swallow Gum, It’ll Sit In Your Stomach For 7 Years!”
- Truth: Chewing gum doesn’t break down when we chew it and doesn’t really break down in our digestive tract. But it certainly doesn’t linger in the stomach. It passes through like most waste, though it’s relatively unchanged by the digestive process
5. “Toads Can Give You Warts!”
- Truth: Human warts are actually caused by a virus (human papilloma virus) that only affects humans. the bumps you see on a toads back aren’t even warts at all: they’re glands. So touch all the toads you
6. “Eating Turkey Makes You Sleepy”
- Truth: Turkey contains tryptophan, a natural sedative. However, the amount of turkey we typically eat doesn’t give us a large enough dosage to cause drowsiness. The high-carbohydrate side dishes and alcohol we consume with Christmas dinner are more suspect
7. “If You Eat Any More Sugar,You’ll Be Bouncing Off The Walls!”
- Truth: First, sugar doesn’t cause us to defy gravity. Second, high-sugar diets do not induce hyperactivity. It may all be in parents’ heads. Parents are more likely to say their children are hyper if they think they’ve had a sugary drink or two.
8. “You Will Catch A Cold If You Don’t Put On A Jacket!”
- Truth: Common colds are caused by virus, not cold air or wet hair. So why do we fall ill during winter? Researchers say that spending more time indoors (enclosed spaces) around other people aids the spread of the virus.
9. “Your Metabolism Is The Reason You’re Fat Or Skinny”
- Truth: Slim people don’t always have faster metabolism. In fact, the opposite is true. Because basal metabolism is the calories we burn up to keep our bodies going, larger people can actually have a higher metabolic rate. Diet and exercise matter more.
10 “If You Shave Your Hair It’ll Grow Back Thicker”
- Truth: Though hair does not grow back thicker after shaving, it may seem that way. Consider it a hairy illusion, as newly regrown hair doesn’t have the fine ends of unshaven hair and hasn’t yet been lightened by the sun or environment.
