Because Mom Said So

I was just feeling bad because we ate dinner so late Christmas Day. With the meal preparation and people arriving late, being delayed, etc. we didn’t eat until around 8 PM. I remember Mom saying that if you eat late you are going to get fat because the food just lays there, and I never questioned it. Made sense to me. But then I was reading in Seniors Health from my health central an article from Amanda MacMillian.

It seems that I believed in a myth. Actually people eat larger meals, and more desserts for sure, but it’s not the time of day when you eat that causes your weight to increase, but the consuming of mass quantities that does it. I know it’s necessary to eat at set times throughout the day, but the intent is to limit how much you eat, not when. The American Dietetic Association tells us that the trouble with eating late at night is more from the poor choices we make when we snack. Too many junk foods with high calories really cause the extra fat, not eating a late dinner.

Two professors of pediatrics at Indiana school on Medicine, Rachel Vreeman, MD, and Aaron Carroll, MD, published an article in the British Medical Journal recently. They suggested that what your Mom, or even a physician advised may not always be backed up by science. They wanted to highlight that even widely held medical beliefs need to be re-examined from time to time.

It reminded me of a show called Myth Busters. Here are some things they found.

Myth: Sugar makes kids hyperactive. There are at least a dozen studies that conclude that kids who were given different amounts of sugar didn’t react any different than those who had none. This was also true of children with ADD, who would be more sensitive to sugar but found no evidence of behavioral change. In one case when parents assumed their kids got a sugar drink, even though it was sugar free, they thought they were more hyperactive.

So even though there is sugar involved at events where kids misbehave, science doesn’t only lay the blame on sugar, but the occasion or event itself plays a part. A lot of times when children seem out of control, they are over excited and running around, or acting out. Parties, getting presents, and being with their peers are all times when they also get more sugary treats, and everything together contributes to the problem.

Want to cure a hangover? Take a couple aspirins, a hit of some pure oxygen, some hair of the dog that bit you, the list is endless, just google hangover cures and see. In fact no large, well designed studies have found that anything but time, and drinking water to avoid dehydration works. Bummer eh?

What about the increase of suicides during the holidays. A 35-year study on Minnesota residents found that suicides did not increase on or around Christmas or any other major holidays, including birthdays, Thanksgiving, or the Fourth of July. Research worldwide shows that suicides are actually more numerous in warm, summer months.

Have you ever heard that Poinsettias are toxic? Survey says: Not Really. In a 1996 analysis of 22,793 poinsettia cases (reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers), none revealed significant poisoning. Although you can get sick from eating large amounts of the plant the author of the study says even if your new puppy gets a hold of your plant he would expect nothing more than vomiting or diarrhea.

One belief that I learned in the military, I always believed and told my kids. You lose 30 percent of your body heat through your head. This was true, but experts say that if this experiment was performed with subjects wearing swimsuits, they would have lost heat evenly across all exposed body surfaces, and only 10% from the head specifically. So we need to tell our kids to bundle up and wear a hat, but remember to take care of all the extremities with boots and gloves.

Even though these reviews are lighthearted we can learn something useful from old wives tales that we hear every day. There is a lot of information on the internet that gets passed around, but there is as much bad information, as there is good, and even professionals can pass bad rumors along. If some myths from the holiday season can be busted, other advice might also need to be verified.