Your Mom Lied: 5 Common Body Myths Debunked
Part of growing up is realizing almost everything your mom said was wrong. This is especially true when it comes to the human body (how many of you grew up with the "masturbation will make hair grow on your palms" thing?) where, as you'll see, mom often failed to do her research.
"If you shave, your facial hair will grow back thicker!"
The Lie:
Fellas, do you remember when you first started getting those wispy specks of hair on your chin? They were patchy and thin, but dammit you loved them, and you knew that it was merely a matter of months before you looked like those guys from ZZ Top. Do you remember what your mom told you? "If you shave your beard/moustache/muttonchops off it will grow back thicker and look much nicer." So you continued shaving it until, sure enough, five years later you had a perfectly serviceable moustache.
The Truth:
Actually, the only reason you ever managed to grow those whiskers was simply time. Renowned (read: gets the most tail) dermatologist Dr. Jerri Hoskyn M.D., says here that, "Shaving is just a method of cutting the hair at the skin surface and has no effect on the part of the hair ... where growth and pigmentation occur." Who's to argue with a man who had to go through eight years of medical school to cure pimples?
So why do moms perpetuate this one? Most likely out of the embarrassment most mothers of pubescent boys feel. It seems you didn't have the good fortune to hit the ground running with puberty like we Cracked staffers did, and it took you a few years to start looking and sounding like Powers Boothe. Consequently you had a fuzzy neck beard, and your parents didn't want to be seen in public with you until you shaved it.
So instead of telling you straight up that you were a repulsive pock-marked abomination and having to hear you whine in your broken girly voice, they simply lied and told you shearing hair makes it stronger and thicker, knowing you would do it--and keep doing it--in a futile attempt look like Grizzly Adams.
"You can't have anymore sugar, you'll be bouncing off the walls!"
The Lie:
All you wanted was another scoop of pure cane sugar in your cherry Kool-Aid, and your mom refused. What the hell! Of course her reasoning is "No, if you have anymore sugar you'll be bouncing off the walls." While we now know she was just telling us she didn't want us getting all hyperactive, you know, running around the house, screaming "child abuse" out of the windows at passers-by, setting the guinea pig on fire and tying our siblings to chairs, it was pretty much the worst thing she could have told us. Instantly our little minds were suddenly filled with visions of being able to defy gravity and ricochet about the house without ever having to touch the floors. In short, your mom told you that you could be fucking Spider-Man if you had more sugar, so you ate the entire bag of sugar.
The Truth:
Unfortunately after eating a bag of sugar you didn't become Spider-Man. In fact, the only superhero you became that day was Vomit-His-Stomach-And-Hallucinate-Man. Hell, it didn't even make you hyper.
Your mom was wrong on two counts: first off, gravity is unaffected by sugar. Secondly, hyperactivity is unaffected by sugar. Or at least, that's what dashing professor of neonatology and general pediatrics at UAMS Medical center, Dr. Bryan Burk says here. "No evidence exists that feeding children a high-sugar diet will induce hyperactivity, despite the common belief that it does."
It seems that you need to consume something more along the lines of caffeine, dopamine or crack to achieve any hyperactivity. In fact for some children, sugar may very well have an opiate affect on their brain. In case you didn't know, morphine and heroin are opiates, so when your mom gave you sugar, it may have been like shooting you up with tiny little amounts of smack, and smack addicts are not known as the most active of people.
Of course, the part about sugar destroying your teeth and turning you into a fatass are both still true, so in the end mom was right.
"Turn on a light! Reading in the dark will ruin your eyes"
The Lie:
Who doesn't remember being nine, sitting in the warming glow of the artificial fire, reading The Brothers Karamazov,and having their mom force them to turn on a lamp to spare their eyes? We all grumbled and groaned and switched on the lights and squinted as the glare from the pages blinded our eyes, and later Uncle Paul would take us to the ice cream shop and let us stick our fingers in the blender. Who can forget that? That did happen to everyone, right?
The Truth:
It seems that, not only did your mom lie about your Uncle Paul's stay in "con college," she also lied to you about your eyes as well. Of course we all know this has become a non-issue since we have it on good faith that only doctors, fat people and nerds read anything anymore.
The truth is, due to the amazing resilience of the human eye, reading in dim light doesn't hurt our eyes. Dr. Katrina Schmidt, who is both a doctor and a woman, says here that, "Reading in dim light is not in itself going to ruin your eyes."
However she does note that our eyes work a little harder in dim light, so if we keep moving the book to try and focus on it, it will tax our poor retinas to the point where they may well just leap off of our eyeballs and walk out the door. According to Wikipedia there have been five cases of this exact thing [citation needed].
"Don't swallow that gum! It takes seven years to pass through your digestive system!"
The Lie:
So there you are chewing gum and playing hopscotch while jumping rope on a roller coaster. You desperately try and keep that delicious resin-based goop in your mouth while enjoying your favorite activities, so one moment you're chewing on it, and then the next moment it feels as if a slug is climbing down your throat. It's then that your mother's words echo in your head, "Never swallow your gum, it'll take seven years before you crap it out." You suddenly picture years worth of gum accumulating in your stomach into a hardening clump that will, of course, kill you.
The Truth:
We would think you'd learn not to listen to your mother by this point, and that the only true thing she ever told you in your life was that you're adopted. The truth (as presented by Cracked.com and your friends at Hubba Bubba) is that you could swallow a whole thing of bubble tape and you'd get to see it come out the other end in a matter of days.
According to those killjoys over at Snopes, the reason your mom lied to you is because she was confused about the term "indigestible," which actually just means your stomach acids are unable to break down the components of gum. While this may sound unpleasant, note that no one ever accuses corn of ruining your digestive system, and it's just as hard to digest.
So the only thing this means is that your gum will appear intact upon exiting your body, which leaves it open to any number of workplace pranking opportunities, Cracked is not responsible for any injuries or firings resulting from that idea, but will gladly own up to any resulting hilarity.
"Put a jacket on! You'll catch a cold!"
The Lie:
We all heard this one while storming out the door in our pajamas in a desperate quest to bury ourselves in the field of fresh snow just outside the threshold of our homes. "Put a jacket on! You'll catch your death out there!" she'd scream, especially if this was all taking place in the 1950s. That's just like your mom to "kill your buzz" and "cramp your style" when all you wanted to do was skinny dip down in the ol' (half-frozen) fishing pond. So against your will you ended up waddling out the door bundled in seven layers of clothing, all due to your mother's half-cocked misconceptions about colds.
The Truth:
In your mother's defense, there's a definite causality between cold weather and colds, but we'll get to that in a moment, after explaining why she's so horribly, horribly wrong. You see, the "common cold" is caused by the rhinovirus, this friendly fellow:
An actual photo of the rhinovirus, from GiantMicrobes.com
What your mom misunderstood about our friend the rhinovirus is that he is just that, a virus. Viruses are pure undead malevolence encoded into genetic material and wrapped up in a creepy protein shell. They aren't even technically alive, so temperature has no affect on them. They're just tiny zombies that you can't even shoot in their microscopic zombie heads.
So why do people get a cold when it's cold out? It depends on who you ask, but if you ask Robert Bradsher M.D. you'll learn that "cold weather usually makes people stay indoors, which might increase the person-to-person transmission of respiratory viruses." Really, if your mother was smart and well informed she would have kicked your ass outside so she could enjoy her Southern Comfort, childless home and germ-free air.
It should also be noted that when you did finally catch that cold, your mom starving your cold and forcing orange juice down your throat did absolutely jack-all for curing you.
Chances are, your mom didn't tell you why some men are total douchebags, did she? Allow us to explain in our rundown of 5 Douchebag Behaviors That Can be Explained by Science. Or, read about the large breasted country singer Yoko Ono is suing for being too much like her dead husband.
I have a deep and abiding love of GiantMicrobes.
ReplyReally, who wouldn't want to snuggle up to one of those things.
Actually, the shaving "myth" is not quite wrong. It really does depend on person to person. For me, my hair started out fine and grew coarse once I started shaving. The proof for me is that when I wax my legs and let the new hair follicle grow, it is fine, long, and soft. Once I shave, it becomes much darker, coarse, and thicker. I think it might have something to do with genetics of my family but at least in MY case, the shaving "myth" is not a myth at all.
ReplySeriously? Shaving cuts the hair off at the skins surface, so instead of being it's normal tappered tipped self it is "blunt" or flat on top giving it the appearance and feeling of being coarser/thicker. Waxing pulls hair at the root so when the new hair grows it starts again from scratch with it's nice tappered tip again!
I'm glad that more and more people are debunking the shaving myth, because unlike the explanation given in this article, many people still actually truly believe that shaving hair makes it grow back coarser, thicker and faster. In fact, when I try to tell almost anyone otherwise, they don't believe me.
ReplyGirls have an alternate version of the hair one based on the same principle to get us NOT to shave. Or maybe that was just my mom?
ReplyWhy does everyone keep refering to the myths as #'s? They're not numbered at all folks.
ReplyTo have a reference point. Honestly...
krenee you beat me to it dang it!
I think you might find that putting your body through a thermal stress can result in a change to the underlying thermodynamics of the immune system at a molecular level; the affinity and avidity equilibria of antibodies for their antigens can be changed, resulting in a less responsive immune system since the interaction of immunoglobulin Variable Domains Chains with their antigenic determinants is fundamental to *any* kind of "invader recognition" in an immunogenic response.
ReplyThe upshot of this is that not putting that coat on won't make you more likely to catch a cold, it will give an already present respiratory tract virus a much better chance of taking a hold.
Add to that cold climate exposure can cause cold-like symptoms. Runny nose, sore throat and coughs can result in leaving the fan in the window too long at night and you're too lazy to get up and turn it off. Of course, the article specified type of cold, and these symptoms can be drowned out much quicker than full-fledged colds.
On the shaving thing, the ladies get that, too. My grandma always told me not to shave my legs 'cause it'd grow back darker and thicker each time. It's an attempt at preserving our modesty, I guess, since any teenage girl would be super-embarrassed to wear anything that would show leg if they hadn't shaved.
ReplyI always assumed it was because parents just want their children, especially their darling little princess girls, to be children forever, and when your daughter starts shaving that is basically the beginning of the end.
Yikes. I've been recycling lies to my children for years! On a separate note: It's starve a fever, feed a cold. At least that's what my mother says.....
ReplyThis is one of those articles where I just want to shake the author's hand and say thank you. A good addition would have been about how no one has ever actually bit into an apple acquired whilst trick or treating and found a razor blade. In fact no one has ever been poisoned or in any way harmed by a stranger on Hallowe'en via treats that have been tampered with. The only such cases were kids getting poisoned by their own parents.
Reply#1 is the most annoying one to hear from a parent. My mom told me that about shaving your arms.
ReplyI always heard it about pulling out gray hairs.
when you pull out a gray hair,you get two more
Ive also heard that you can't get sick just by not wearing a jacket or being cold. but if i go outside without a jacket for a long period of time I do end up sick. I don't care what science says, I just go by my own experiences. If I stay warm i dont get sick its a simple as that
ReplySame here.
I always thought that exposure to the cold weakened your immune system and made you more susceptible to illness... not that it literally gave you a cold or made a virus more powerful.
Lol, I never copped the gum story, that's hella funny.
ReplyFrom what I read before on the cold-myth, UV-lightning kills the bacteria in the summer? Can anyone confirm? Another myth?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesViruses and Bacteria are not the same thing, mate. And no, sunlight (I assume this is what you mean by UV-"Lightning"?) can't effectively disable either.
jeancsg
the truth is a uv lamp or black light actually kills viral infections and backteria
Therefore, the next time you're sick, hit up a rave party.
Damn. My health teacher told me these, not my mom.
ReplyMy mom only told me #3.
ReplyYour info on colds is wrong on three counts. Firstly, Viruses ARE affected by temperture. Extreme heat denatures and destroys their proteins and them. Secondly, our immune system IS affected by temperature. If u r freezing, enzymes in your immune cells don't work well and blood vessels constrict at body extemities (e.g. nose n lungs). So your immunity drops plus less immune cells get to these areas. Hence u are likely to get infections in these areas e.g. Cold and flu.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesRead university level textbooks on physiology and microiology if u r unconvinced.
I have a masters in science and you are a jackass. First (firstly is not a word), as you already stated, it takes EXTREME heat to denature a protein. The context of this article is in regards to normal earth temperatures, not bunsen burner temperatures. Second, except in hypothermic or near death situations, no leukocyte (correct term for immune cells) in your entire body will ever become so cold that it will lose functionality. Futhermore, leukocytes do not even use enzymes to fight viruses because they do not attack viruses directly. The immune system targets cells which appear foreign when they mutate under the direction of a virus and lose their major histocompatibility. The leukocytes then release non-enzymatic proteins, perforin and granulysin, which create cell pores and induce apoptosis in the infected cells. Antibodies fight viruses, but again, not entirely by enzymatic action and not in any part of the body which could become so cold that the immune system would lose efficiency.
Perhaps you should actually READ some of those textbooks you are so fond of instead of quoting out of your ass from your community college 101 class. One last thing, the article had references to DOCTORS...I think they're a bit more qualified than you.
Someone failed their Physiology AND Microbiology classes. Those are extremely uninformed assumptions. As the commenter below correctly pointed out, Leukocytes do not lose functionality at low BODY temperatures, neither do Macrophages or Neutrophils. Exactly what kind of textbooks are you reading?
You can't even spell, or construct a coherent sentence - and we're supposed to believe you understand viruses and the human immune system...? Sure, friend.
Firstly is a word. I don't know a lot about science, but I know that.
@ user3 - once I read your first sentence I didn't bother to read anymore. It was perfect.
i declare User3 to be an awesome scientist!
hey you do realize that there is a difference between the earths normal temp at the winter and an Bunsen burner, and being cold, and freezing to the point that some of my Delicious Hot Cocoa can't cure?
Another reason you may get a cold if you're cold is because your body is working harder on not getting hypothermia than not getting a rhinovirus.
ReplyI have a lot to say about your opinion, but to avoid a rant I will simply use a one liner.
Link please. (such as doctors agreeing)
I CALL BS TO SMITE THEE LIES!!!!!!!
"...temperature has no affect on [viruses]" Ouch.
ReplyUser3 already covered this, but it was plainly obvious that the author was using normal human body temperatures as their standard. If your body is at a temperature equivalent to the surface of a hotplate or the flame of a bunser burner, you have much more serious issues than worrying about the proteins in a cold virus denaturing.
^ Hey, I think Chopmankins meant to point out that the correct word in this sentence should be "effect", not "affect".
I wish you you covered "eating sugar causes acne".
ReplyI was often told it was chocolate that did that one.
I was told french fries and/or caramel.
Swallowing gum still isn't good for you, bacteria sticks to it and if it gets caught in the folds of your appendix, your appendix could burst from appendicitis.
Reply