Medical Myths (But Keep Them To Yourself)

As we get older and have children, we find ourselves repeating the same things to them that we were told as children so its's eat 5 piece of fruit a day, don't swallow your chewing gum as it stays in your stomach for years, don't go swimming until after 2 hours after eating, reading in poor light will strain your eyes and sitting too close to the TV will damage your eyesight, drink 8 glasses of water, don't shave your legs as the hairs will grow back darker, wear a hat as you lose most heat out of your head, and don't go outside with wet hair.  
The Medical Journal has debunked a list of Medical Myths and it turns out i had been walking around in my youth munching apples, spitting out my gum at boys i didn't like, missed meals to go swimming and arrived late everywhere because i had been blow-drying my hair and all for nothing, thanks Mum.  
The actual advice is eat MORE fruit, the five number was just a number plucked out the air by doctors to give people a target and although many of the ingredients in gum are indigestible and it's sticky nature, the digestive system happily passes it along through the digestive tract and into the toilet bowl as it does with anything else.
The many teenage summer afternoons i spent choosing between sweltering with sand covered chips and limp cheese sandwiches or a dip in the cool waters of the sea but i could have done both because diving in before the required 120 minutes have elapsed does not result in you drowning from cramps, just means you are swimming while hungry.    
Reading until you can't see the words on the page is fine, it won't cause any damage to your eyes and while the sitting too close to the TV will damage your eyes was true when the first TV's came out, that was because early TV sets emitted radiation and have emitted negligible amounts of radiation since the 1960's so i didn't need to move back during all those 1980's Top of The Pops when WHAM! was on.
We should consume 8 glasses of water a day but the advice is 'take in about eight glasses a day', which we mostly do anyway through our food so i could have got away with 2 and all those painful leg waxes because as i was told 'nobody likes a woman with hairy legs' was a waste of good screaming because the hair that grows back is exactly the same as the coloured hair that you just ripped from your follicles.
All that time spent washing and drying your hair before teasing it into just the right style, only for your mum to then plonk a hat on your head on the way out because 'You lose most of your body heat through your head' but it turns out arriving for a date with that hot boy with flat hair and a bobble hat was all for nothing because you lose as much through your head as you do through any exposed skin and i could have gone out with wet hair because viruses and bacteria cause colds, not a low temperature.
Now that i know all that you would think i wouldn't be nagging the kids to eat more fruit or wear a hat when outside or even swap my daughters waxing kit for a Gilette razor but nope, i'm going to keep the propagating the myths because if i had to endure them, so can they.