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8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Basic Black by Arthur Black Lies our parents told us First it was one hour, then it stretched to two. I think it eventually got up to two and a half hours that we were forbidden to swim after eating. "Your guts will cramp up and you'll sink like a bowling ball" our Elders assured us. Dutifully, we youngsters stayed out of the water, sweating like artesian wells until the requisite grace period had elapsed. Instead we played baseball, rode our bikes or ran around like mindless hyenas. And one day it occurred to me: how come I don't get stomach cramps playing baseball, riding my bike or running around like a mindless hyena? Because it was a myth. Swimming after eating doesn't cause cramps. Sure, you might get one. You might also get hit by lightning or adopted by Madonna. Swimming cramps was just one more Grim Fairy Tale that oldsters used to keep us kids in line. There were lots of others. I had an aunt who used to bushwhack me at the back door when I was on my way outside to go tobogganing. "Wear your toque and scarf," she'd thunder. "Or you'll catch your death of cold." Wrong, Auntie. Viruses, not temperature fluctuations, cause colds. Lots of stuff would, though, according to the gossip in the schoolyard. It was an absolute given that if you swallowed the stone from a fruit you were eating there was a better than even chance that a peach, cherry or apricot tree would soon be taking root just behind your belly button. And we all knew for a fact that it was madness to swallow your bubble gum because it took gum seven years to dissolve in your stomach. Speaking of assaults on the stomach, did you, as I did, wrestle with the next-toimpossible dictum that we all must drink eight to ten large glasses of water a day? I shudder to think what I put my kidneys through, trying to achieve that quota. Turns out to be another fairy tale. It's been around since the end of World War II but nobody knows who started it, and no credible authority thinks there's any truth to it. Barbara Rolls, a nutrition researcher with Pennsylvania State University says "I have no idea where the eight-glasses-a-day rule came from - and I've written a book about water." Guilt-inducing fairy tales are still a-borning. Have you noticed the proliferation of antibacterial hand sanitizers in hospital waiting rooms and doctors' offices? Big business. Sales of the germ-fighting gels have skyrocketed by 80 percent in the last little while. Hand sanitizers are so popular they've given rise to a brand new phobia which the experts have tagged with the memorable handle HSOCD. That stands for Hand Sanitizer Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Increasing numbers of people are becoming obsessed with washing their hands 40 or 50 times a day. Billionaire Howard Hughes had the same phobia. And don't forget: Howard Hughes was nuts. Experts say that not only is excessive devotion to your hand sanitizer more than a touch anal, it probably doesn't offer you any real protection anyway. Common sense would tell you that a tribe that's been around for a couple of hundred thousand years as modern humans have, probably doesn't need hand sanitizers to carry on, but common sense and folk mythology have different postal codes. Take that other modern obsession: obesity. Everybody knows what causes fat bums, jiggly thighs and pendulous guts - it's that darned protein imbalance, right? No, wait - that was last month. You want to know why you can't do up your pants? Blame it on genetics, fast food or lack of exercise. You can also claim an adrenal disorder, metabolic irregularities or something truly exotic like gastroesophageal reflux. (I blame my big butt on polycystic ovaries.) The truth, it seems, is somewhat simpler. A recent study conducted by the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention concludes that the rise in obesity among Americans since 1970 "was virtually all due to increased energy intake". Translation: people are fat because people eat too much. Call me a cynic, but a multimillion dollar study that tracks the eating habits of 1399 adults and 963 children over a 30-year period, only to conclude that we're fatter because we eat more than we used to, makes me feel like laughing like a hyena. Which, by the way, they don't. Laugh, I mean. The weird noise hyenas make has nothing to do with having a good time. Sarah BensonAmram, who spent two years studying hyenas in Kenya says, "In fact, they're usually pretty stressed out. Often they giggle once they've been attacked." Another lie our parents told us. 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