55 Dangerous And Outdated Health Myths That Are Still Believed
It’s always useful to know if that new health trend is just a fad. Can you really detox your body with a juice cleanse? Or can it seriously damage our health? According to a 2021 review article, misinformation about health online is becoming a “public health concern.” Researchers at the University of Cadiz in Spain found that the most common topics susceptible to misinformation are “vaccines, drugs or smoking, noncommunicable diseases, pandemics, eating disorders, and medical treatments.”
However, some online spaces care for debunking health myths. And one of the people interested in this topic is the Reddit user u/imadepyramids. He asked other Redditors: “What are some [of the] most accepted health myths?” People shared misconceptions about health they no longer believe, and you can check them out below!
Bored Panda also had a chance to chat with the OP. u/imadepyramids told us more about why he decided to ask other Redditors this question and shared some health-related myths he used to believe in himself.
Addiction is just lack of willpower. Couldnt be further from the truth. Addiction is a very complex physiologic, psychological and psychosocial process. It takes an enormous effort on the afflicted person as well as support from doctors, family, friends and sometimes mental health counselors to overcome.
The Redditor imadepyramids often posts questions on r/AskReddit. Aside from learning new things, he says he likes it because of that sweet, sweet dopamine rush. “I always post questions on r/AskReddit because I love [the] engagement it gets me,” the Redditor says. “It’s just great to [wake up] in [the] morning to a 500+ notifications symbol.”
However, it’s not just selfish reasons that drive this user’s curiosity. “I try to always ask thought-provoking questions which will benefit both me and the people who are reading the post,” imadepyramids tells Bored Panda. And this post is one of such – there are plenty of things to learn from what the other netizens have shared.
That everyone is capable of breastfeeding. I’m going to get a lot of thumbs down, but so many of the myths associated with breastfeeding are harmful to babies and bad for mother’s mental and physical health.
Oh my god how are chiropractors not the top answer. They are not doctors. It is not science. People can be permanently injured or unlived by them. F*****g stay as far away from those quacks. (My sister works at a chiropractic office and swears by them btw)
This thread on r/AskReddit got pretty popular: it now has almost 6.5k comments and 5.3k upvotes! The author says he didn’t expect the post to get so popular. The Redditor is honest with us and our readers, he admits he didn’t read all the comments.
However, some still stood out to him. “People here and there claim that small quantities of alcohol can be helpful but all the comments were against it!” the OP says. “I also [got] to know about superfoods and how they are also a myth.” He thinks that such popularity with a post like this indicates that this generation is quite conscious about their health.
Fat makes you fat. The tide is turning and this isn’t as prevalent as it was, but people still believe this to be true. I know most people here are too young for this, but back in the 90s a company called Snackwell introduced a line of fat free cookies. Suburban moms bought them en masse and we all ate them like crazy. They were loaded with sugar, but hey “no fat!”.
When we ask him whether there are any health myths he used to believe in the past but no longer does, the Redditor mentions two. “Detox programs are not what they claim and yoga and homeopathy can’t cure big diseases,” the Redditor shares.
I really get him on this one – I have to admit, I did believe in ‘cleansing juices’ for a short while too. And as for yoga, I’m still not missing my weekly class, but I don’t think it will magically cure all my problems.
That you can lose fat on certain body areas with certain excercizes. Nothing more stupid than that. As a person in the eating-disorder community, I know millions of these myths.
“You’re too young to have ______”
I feel like people under the age of 40 are told this so often. When I had abdominal pain a few months back, with the location and type of pain I was in, when I did some research it sounded exactly like diverticulitis, despite never having a diverticulosis diagnosis. When I shared my thoughts at urgent care I was told I was “too young” to have that kind of problem – I’m 29. Went to the ER the next day where they did a CT scan and yep, diverticulitis.
Oh oh oh! I’m a health care provider, here is my most common ones.
Thinking that being mildly cold in isolation will make you get sick.
Thinking people (45+) don’t need to work out
Letting scabs dry out on purpose
Vastly overstating the effects of turmeric, blueberries, cherries, etc.
Thinking pain level has anything to do with injury severity.
Believing that tan skin is healthier than pale skin.
Believing that diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension etc are “cured” by medicines. Nope just managed. I could go on all day.
It’s a messed up myth that Black people and minorities in general don’t feel pain the same way and get less things like pain killers and anesthetics than others. There are still people in the medical community who were taught this decades ago who still believe this.
That BMI equates to health.
A very muscular person will have a BMI that says they’re obese.
Morning sickness ends within a specific time frame, solutions include: saltines, ginger ale, and Gatorade. Also, that your next pregnancy won’t involve morning sickness.
I vomited for 9 months straight and that includes hours before my child was extracted thru the sun roof via emergency c-section.
I had HG. No one believed me. I suffered, I struggled, and before my daughter was even born, people (including nurses and doctors) were already talking about my “future pregnancies” not being so bad.
HG in a subsequent pregnancy has over a 75% recurrence rate. You could have serious health complications, and so could your baby. It is dangerous, and it used to kill women (and still could in bad enough circumstances).
It is not f*****g morning sickness and there is no cure, and no OTC remedy is going to make it go away.
“Tilt your head back if you have a nosebleed.”
Do not do this because the blood could drain down your throat and make you sick or into your airways and obstruct them.
Instead you should sit upright, hold a tissue under your nose, tilt your head slightly forward, pinch the soft part of your nose just forward of the bone, and keep pinching for 10-15 minutes.
Sugar makes kids hyperactive. It doesn’t. Kids are naturally high energy. And situations where they eat a lot of sugar are often things like birthday parties and Christmas which just amp them up regardless of what they’ve eaten.
i’m going to get some hate for this and I swear it’s not coming from a fat shaming place… but the myth that when you’re pregnant, you can eat whatever you want, however much you want, because you are “eating for two”.
you actually only need 200-400 extra calories, even in the last trimester.
anything over that will result in weight gain. which is not necessarily a bad thing if you stay within your healthy weight for height.
but if you start to cross over to moderately obese…it’s a problem.
being a good parent means setting a good example for health, and also being able to keep up with them physically.
That almost everyone with Type 2 diabetes just ate way too much sugar and didn’t look after themselves.
Genetics play a role too, even if you do your best to prevent it
“MSG is bad for you”
*”Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer with a savory taste that intensifies the meaty, savory flavor of food, as naturally occurring glutamate does in foods such as stews and meat soups.”* *”A controversy surrounding the safety of MSG began on 4 April 1968, when Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, coining the term “Chinese restaurant syndrome”. In his letter, Kwok suggested several possible causes before he nominated MSG for his symptoms.”* *”Chinese restaurant syndrome’ has the same symptoms as hypernatremia. (salt poisoning)”*
That IBD and IBS are essentially the same. I don’t want to dismiss what people with IBS go through, but roughly 70% of people with Crohn’s or Colitis will require major surgery within their lifetime, and per an NIH report, have a 20% higher mortality rate. It’s not a, “lol, you poop a lot” disease. It’s an autoimmune disorder that can literally kill people by their intestines being so filled with scar tissue that they close entirely. But IBD and IBS often get lumped together, and I think that’s harmful for suffers of each.
“Ulcers are caused by stress.” Nope, the vast majority are caused by a quickly curable bacteria, and the rest are usually caused by chronic NSAID use.
Weed cures everything and has no downsides. I have nothing against cannabis use and it’s clearly the least harmful recreational drug in common use but it’s not without downsides. If you want to 420 blaze it all day despite that all the power to you but don’t pretent inhaling burning plant matter and taking in copious amounts of thc doesn’t have negative effects on physical and mental health.
GMOs are bad… No Karen GMOs don’t mutate you or mess with your body’s balance. They mean we can feed more with less and crops are more resilient to natural disasters. It also means less pesticides that do cause harm.
There is such a thing as “super food”. No, there is no miracle food that makes you instantly healthy just because suddenly you eat it. You’re healthy because of a healthy diet, not because you eat a fruit that was “discovered” by a white American doing an expedition in the middle of the Amazon.
You should wash your chicken before cooking it. If you’re buying your chicken from wet markets – do it. If you’re buying it from grocery stores – do not.
The only result of washing chicken before cooking is contaminating your kitchen.
That being young and having an active healthy lifestyle will ward off chronic illnesses. You can get sick at any age with an autoimmune condition, post-viral chronic illness or cancer. It has nothing to do with how much you exercise or how healthy you eat.
I worked in a lab where we processed samples. One day we get in this small, bright green thing that looks like a rock. It was from inside a young lady’s v*****l canal….we were all super shocked and kind of agreed that it was probably a piece of a tampon that got stuck… IT WAS A PIECE OF POTATO!!!!!! Apparently, some people think putting a potato in their v****a cures diseases or works as a contraceptive
That x amount of alcoholic units per week does *no* harm.
Alcohol is in fact very harmful, a literal poison and carciogenic. It is also one of the main cointributors to violent acts, accidents and property damage. It costs society *enormous* amounts every year, in addition to the human cost.
Yet 99% of people think “oh well, I needs mah wine/beer/booze to relax”. Just the fact that this will get downvoted shows how biased most of us are.
Weight loss is primarily achieved through exercise. The truth is that weight loss is almost entirely driven by behaviors surrounding feeding. It’s very difficult to change these behaviors, which is why so few people can lose weight with traditional interventions. The strongest data point for this is that medications that suppress appetite like GLP-1RAs have come out and are insanely effective for weight loss.
Sleeping with wet hair will cause a cold
. A wet pillow is going to breed bacteria.
Regionally or worldwide? Cuz if regionally then in Slovakia, or at least in the slavic countries people belief that sitting on cold stone will make you infertile or cause infections in your bladder and such.
You can only have an eating disorder if you are underweight.
sweating your a**e off in the gym is the only/best way to lose weight
That training your waist makes it tighter and therefore slimmer. Many women believe this, some even use a hoola hoop in order to shape their waist.
Cranberry juice won’t do a thing for a UTI. You have to get real antibiotics or the infection can spread to your kidneys and kill you.
Excessive amounts of Vitamin C does nothing to prevent/fight the common cold. “Airborne” was actually taken to court for false advertising for trying to make this claim.
If you stay in the cold, you will get sick.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”
Also similar is eating small ~6 times a day helps with blood sugar.
That eating healthy is expensive.
Buy in bulk, don’t buy the “organic” food, and cook your meals.
A rice cooker, air fryer, and meal prepping will make life easier when eating healthy.
Eating fat causes arteries to “clog”…
Its simply not true at all.
Plaque build up, in the veins is a real issue though. Thats caused by inflammatory foods, smoking, high insulin and such. Not fat. (Cononary calcium scan. Is the best indicator of future issues in this regard. It scans for plaque build up)
Cholesterol is just thought to be the issue because thats what ends up getting stuck in the plaque filled arteries.
You need cholesterol to live. The analogy is, cholesterol is blamed coz theyre present.
Its like blaming the fire department for always being at a house fire.
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It’s always useful to know if that new health trend is just a fad. Can you really detox your body with a juice cleanse? Or can it seriously damage our health? According to a 2021 review article, misinformation about health online is becoming a "public health concern." Researchers at the University of Cadiz in Spain found that the most common topics susceptible to misinformation are "vaccines, drugs or smoking, noncommunicable diseases, pandemics, eating disorders, and medical treatments."
However, some online spaces care for debunking health myths. And one of the people interested in this topic is the Reddit user u/imadepyramids. He asked other Redditors: "What are some [of the] most accepted health myths?" People shared misconceptions about health they no longer believe, and you can check them out below!
Bored Panda also had a chance to chat with the OP. u/imadepyramids told us more about why he decided to ask other Redditors this question and shared some health-related myths he used to believe in himself.
Addiction is just lack of willpower. Couldnt be further from the truth. Addiction is a very complex physiologic, psychological and psychosocial process. It takes an enormous effort on the afflicted person as well as support from doctors, family, friends and sometimes mental health counselors to overcome.
The Redditor imadepyramids often posts questions on r/AskReddit. Aside from learning new things, he says he likes it because of that sweet, sweet dopamine rush. "I always post questions on r/AskReddit because I love [the] engagement it gets me," the Redditor says. "It's just great to [wake up] in [the] morning to a 500+ notifications symbol."
However, it's not just selfish reasons that drive this user's curiosity. "I try to always ask thought-provoking questions which will benefit both me and the people who are reading the post," imadepyramids tells Bored Panda. And this post is one of such – there are plenty of things to learn from what the other netizens have shared.
That everyone is capable of breastfeeding. I'm going to get a lot of thumbs down, but so many of the myths associated with breastfeeding are harmful to babies and bad for mother's mental and physical health.
Oh my god how are chiropractors not the top answer. They are not doctors. It is not science. People can be permanently injured or unlived by them. F*****g stay as far away from those quacks. (My sister works at a chiropractic office and swears by them btw)
This thread on r/AskReddit got pretty popular: it now has almost 6.5k comments and 5.3k upvotes! The author says he didn't expect the post to get so popular. The Redditor is honest with us and our readers, he admits he didn't read all the comments.
However, some still stood out to him. "People here and there claim that small quantities of alcohol can be helpful but all the comments were against it!" the OP says. "I also [got] to know about superfoods and how they are also a myth." He thinks that such popularity with a post like this indicates that this generation is quite conscious about their health.
Fat makes you fat. The tide is turning and this isn't as prevalent as it was, but people still believe this to be true. I know most people here are too young for this, but back in the 90s a company called Snackwell introduced a line of fat free cookies. Suburban moms bought them en masse and we all ate them like crazy. They were loaded with sugar, but hey "no fat!".
When we ask him whether there are any health myths he used to believe in the past but no longer does, the Redditor mentions two. "Detox programs are not what they claim and yoga and homeopathy can't cure big diseases," the Redditor shares.
I really get him on this one – I have to admit, I did believe in 'cleansing juices' for a short while too. And as for yoga, I'm still not missing my weekly class, but I don't think it will magically cure all my problems.
That you can lose fat on certain body areas with certain excercizes. Nothing more stupid than that. As a person in the eating-disorder community, I know millions of these myths.
"You're too young to have ______"
I feel like people under the age of 40 are told this so often. When I had abdominal pain a few months back, with the location and type of pain I was in, when I did some research it sounded exactly like diverticulitis, despite never having a diverticulosis diagnosis. When I shared my thoughts at urgent care I was told I was "too young" to have that kind of problem - I'm 29. Went to the ER the next day where they did a CT scan and yep, diverticulitis.
Oh oh oh! I'm a health care provider, here is my most common ones.
Thinking that being mildly cold in isolation will make you get sick.
Thinking people (45+) don't need to work out
Letting scabs dry out on purpose
Vastly overstating the effects of turmeric, blueberries, cherries, etc.
Thinking pain level has anything to do with injury severity.
Believing that tan skin is healthier than pale skin.
Believing that diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension etc are "cured" by medicines. Nope just managed. I could go on all day.
It’s a messed up myth that Black people and minorities in general don’t feel pain the same way and get less things like pain killers and anesthetics than others. There are still people in the medical community who were taught this decades ago who still believe this.
That BMI equates to health.
A very muscular person will have a BMI that says they're obese.
Morning sickness ends within a specific time frame, solutions include: saltines, ginger ale, and Gatorade. Also, that your next pregnancy won’t involve morning sickness.
I vomited for 9 months straight and that includes hours before my child was extracted thru the sun roof via emergency c-section.
I had HG. No one believed me. I suffered, I struggled, and before my daughter was even born, people (including nurses and doctors) were already talking about my “future pregnancies” not being so bad.
HG in a subsequent pregnancy has over a 75% recurrence rate. You could have serious health complications, and so could your baby. It is dangerous, and it used to kill women (and still could in bad enough circumstances).
It is not f*****g morning sickness and there is no cure, and no OTC remedy is going to make it go away.
“Tilt your head back if you have a nosebleed.”
Do not do this because the blood could drain down your throat and make you sick or into your airways and obstruct them.
Instead you should sit upright, hold a tissue under your nose, tilt your head slightly forward, pinch the soft part of your nose just forward of the bone, and keep pinching for 10-15 minutes.
Sugar makes kids hyperactive. It doesn't. Kids are naturally high energy. And situations where they eat a lot of sugar are often things like birthday parties and Christmas which just amp them up regardless of what they've eaten.
i'm going to get some hate for this and I swear it's not coming from a fat shaming place... but the myth that when you're pregnant, you can eat whatever you want, however much you want, because you are "eating for two".
you actually only need 200-400 extra calories, even in the last trimester.
anything over that will result in weight gain. which is not necessarily a bad thing if you stay within your healthy weight for height.
but if you start to cross over to moderately obese...it's a problem.
being a good parent means setting a good example for health, and also being able to keep up with them physically.
That almost everyone with Type 2 diabetes just ate way too much sugar and didn’t look after themselves.
Genetics play a role too, even if you do your best to prevent it
“MSG is bad for you”
*"Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer with a savory taste that intensifies the meaty, savory flavor of food, as naturally occurring glutamate does in foods such as stews and meat soups."* *"A controversy surrounding the safety of MSG began on 4 April 1968, when Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, coining the term "Chinese restaurant syndrome". In his letter, Kwok suggested several possible causes before he nominated MSG for his symptoms."* *"Chinese restaurant syndrome' has the same symptoms as hypernatremia. (salt poisoning)"*
That IBD and IBS are essentially the same. I don't want to dismiss what people with IBS go through, but roughly 70% of people with Crohn's or Colitis will require major surgery within their lifetime, and per an NIH report, have a 20% higher mortality rate. It's not a, "lol, you poop a lot" disease. It's an autoimmune disorder that can literally kill people by their intestines being so filled with scar tissue that they close entirely. But IBD and IBS often get lumped together, and I think that's harmful for suffers of each.
“Ulcers are caused by stress.” Nope, the vast majority are caused by a quickly curable bacteria, and the rest are usually caused by chronic NSAID use.
Weed cures everything and has no downsides. I have nothing against cannabis use and it's clearly the least harmful recreational drug in common use but it's not without downsides. If you want to 420 blaze it all day despite that all the power to you but don't pretent inhaling burning plant matter and taking in copious amounts of thc doesn't have negative effects on physical and mental health.
GMOs are bad... No Karen GMOs don't mutate you or mess with your body's balance. They mean we can feed more with less and crops are more resilient to natural disasters. It also means less pesticides that do cause harm.
There is such a thing as "super food". No, there is no miracle food that makes you instantly healthy just because suddenly you eat it. You're healthy because of a healthy diet, not because you eat a fruit that was "discovered" by a white American doing an expedition in the middle of the Amazon.
You should wash your chicken before cooking it. If you're buying your chicken from wet markets - do it. If you're buying it from grocery stores - do not.
The only result of washing chicken before cooking is contaminating your kitchen.
That being young and having an active healthy lifestyle will ward off chronic illnesses. You can get sick at any age with an autoimmune condition, post-viral chronic illness or cancer. It has nothing to do with how much you exercise or how healthy you eat.
I worked in a lab where we processed samples. One day we get in this small, bright green thing that looks like a rock. It was from inside a young lady's v*****l canal....we were all super shocked and kind of agreed that it was probably a piece of a tampon that got stuck... IT WAS A PIECE OF POTATO!!!!!! Apparently, some people think putting a potato in their v****a cures diseases or works as a contraceptive
That x amount of alcoholic units per week does *no* harm.
Alcohol is in fact very harmful, a literal poison and carciogenic. It is also one of the main cointributors to violent acts, accidents and property damage. It costs society *enormous* amounts every year, in addition to the human cost.
Yet 99% of people think "oh well, I needs mah wine/beer/booze to relax". Just the fact that this will get downvoted shows how biased most of us are.
Weight loss is primarily achieved through exercise. The truth is that weight loss is almost entirely driven by behaviors surrounding feeding. It’s very difficult to change these behaviors, which is why so few people can lose weight with traditional interventions. The strongest data point for this is that medications that suppress appetite like GLP-1RAs have come out and are insanely effective for weight loss.
Sleeping with wet hair will cause a cold
. A wet pillow is going to breed bacteria.
Regionally or worldwide? Cuz if regionally then in Slovakia, or at least in the slavic countries people belief that sitting on cold stone will make you infertile or cause infections in your bladder and such.
You can only have an eating disorder if you are underweight.
sweating your a**e off in the gym is the only/best way to lose weight
That training your waist makes it tighter and therefore slimmer. Many women believe this, some even use a hoola hoop in order to shape their waist.
Cranberry juice won't do a thing for a UTI. You have to get real antibiotics or the infection can spread to your kidneys and kill you.
Excessive amounts of Vitamin C does nothing to prevent/fight the common cold. "Airborne" was actually taken to court for false advertising for trying to make this claim.
If you stay in the cold, you will get sick.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day"
Also similar is eating small ~6 times a day helps with blood sugar.
That eating healthy is expensive.
Buy in bulk, don't buy the "organic" food, and cook your meals.
A rice cooker, air fryer, and meal prepping will make life easier when eating healthy.
Eating fat causes arteries to "clog"...
Its simply not true at all.
Plaque build up, in the veins is a real issue though. Thats caused by inflammatory foods, smoking, high insulin and such. Not fat. (Cononary calcium scan. Is the best indicator of future issues in this regard. It scans for plaque build up)
Cholesterol is just thought to be the issue because thats what ends up getting stuck in the plaque filled arteries.
You need cholesterol to live. The analogy is, cholesterol is blamed coz theyre present.
Its like blaming the fire department for always being at a house fire.
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