My dad swore you have to wait an hour after eating to swim and I called him out on it

Last summer at Lake Erie, my dad yelled at my niece for jumping in 20 minutes after lunch. I looked it up on my phone right there and found out the whole "cramps and drowning" thing is basically a myth with no real science behind it. He got all defensive but I showed him an article from a doctor that said your body digests food just fine while swimming. Has anyone actually ever gotten a cramp from swimming after a meal or is this just something our grandparents made up?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.derek27d ago

And it's not just the swimming thing either, it's like there's a whole category of "grandparent wisdom" that just doesn't hold up. My dad still insists you shouldn't go outside with wet hair or you'll catch a cold, and my mom thinks you need to wait 30 minutes after eating before you can drink anything cold. I mean, it's amazing how much of what they told us growing up was just stuff someone made up decades ago and everyone just ran with it. The swimming one is probably the most famous example though, idk why that one stuck so hard.

garcia.laura27d ago

The cold drink thing is actually a real deal for some people, just not the way your mom thinks. I've seen it firsthand with customers who have reflux or bad digestion - cold liquids can slow things down for them. But for a healthy person? Drink up. The wet hair one kills me though. I used to work outside in the winter, would come in with my hair frozen solid and never got sick. Colds come from viruses, not temperature. Your parents meant well, they just got bad info passed down.

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