In the area of health, scientific evidence and emotion have overlapped and given birth to many health myths throughout the years. Some keep taking them as facts despite current evidence of the contrary. In this article, we are going to debunk some of the most common health myths that people need to stop believing.
Only Get Your Eyes Tested If You Notice Changes
This is another common myth that we tend to notice people believing. However, if you wait until there is a significant difference to your vision, you miss out on the opportunity to get the help you need at an earlier point, which could help to slow down the impact of vision loss or other optic problems. In fact, it is recommended that everyone gets their eyes tested every two years. However, should you notice a difference in your vision within the two-year period, don’t wait; book an appointment as soon as possible. If you do need glasses, there are some great resources, like Eyeglasses.com, where you can get the glasses you need.
You Should Avoid Gluten
This is one of those health myths that we have seen gain more traction in recent times. People have started to follow gluten-free diets even when they do not have any sort of intolerance to gluten. They simply assume that this is an effective manner of leading a healthy lifestyle and losing weight, yet this is not the case. Unless you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, having gluten in your diet is not unhealthy nor is it harmful.
Fat Is Bad For Your Health
This is another common health myth. Aside from gluten, another thing that a lot of people tend to assume is bad for them is fat. They look to eliminate fat from the food they consume on a daily basis in an attempt to lose weight or stay in shape. However, fat is not bad for you. In fact, changing your mindset and not thinking about foods as bad or good foods is one of the best things you can do. There is no such thing as bad food — that is if we are talking about real food, not processed food-like products. Some foods simply contain more calories than others. Therefore, it is all about educating yourself and learning how to follow a more balanced diet that incorporates healthy fats including avocados, olive oil, butter, nut butter, nuts, and seeds.
Cold Air Causes Colds
You probably heard your mom telling you to avoid going outside in cold weather with wet hair or without covering your nose and mouth, otherwise, you’ll catch a cold. However, that’s not how colds are spread. If you go outside in cold weather, with or without wet clothes or hair, you don’t increase your chances of catching a cold. Colds come from viruses and these viruses (rhinovirus, coronavirus, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, parainfluenza) can be spread regardless of the weather.
A theory as to why the colds and flu become more common in the winter is that cold weather forces people indoors where cold and flu viruses spread more easily in a closed space where people are close to each other. The most important thing to keep in mind in relation to colds and other conditions is that if you keep your body healthy and do things to boost your immune system, your body will be more apt to combat anything that it encounters.
Eating Breakfast Helps You Lose Weight
Another common health myth is breakfast-as-weight-loss-tool. The argument points out that if you eat in the morning, you won’t be very hungry during the day and you will eat fewer calories at night. However, studies have shown that having breakfast or skipping it doesn’t play a role in body composition. What matters, in regards to fat loss though, is the number of calories consumed per day. For the most part, your body treats a calorie like a calorie whether you eat it at night or in the morning.
It’s a matter of preference. You must figure out what works best for you. If you feel less hungry throughout the day by eating a healthy breakfast, go for it. Or you may want to engage in intermittent fasting (IF), where you avoid food for 12+ hours and start eating at noon or afternoon. IF not only improves body composition, but has numerous health benefits among them, preservation of muscle, performance enhancement, and slowing aging and disease processes.
Bacteria Are Harmful
Generally, the word “bacteria” has a negative connotation. However, not all bacteria are bad. Some bacteria are responsible for diseases, including strep throat, tuberculosis, UTIs, syphilis, and cholera. Other bacteria, “good” bacteria, live inside your body, mostly in your gut, and help keep your body, mind, digestive and immune systems healthy. You can even harm your body by killing off the bacteria that live inside, like in the case of using antibiotics regularly. For that reason, many doctors recommend probiotics.
Natural Foods Are Always Best
The food industry is well aware that nowadays consumers are looking for more natural foods. However, labeling a product as “natural” doesn’t mean it’s healthy. One of the things to look for is having an “organic” label — this tells you that the product has fewer toxins and the ingredients are cleaner. However, you must still read the list of ingredients. Even foods labeled natural can be full of unhealthy ingredients, such as vegetable oils, sugars, high fructose corn syrup, coloring, additives, artificial chemicals, and other sources of empty calories. If you really want to eat healthily, you skip the regular consumption of processed foods and fill your carts with organic fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins, and healthy fats.
Diagnose Health Problems Online
There are so many different benefits and advantages that the Internet has brought us! We are able to get easy access to information anytime anywhere, and this has largely been a great thing. Yes, there are some great pieces of advice online and we have some excellent health experts sharing their thoughts. However, we also need to consider the fact that anyone has a platform online, and so it is easy to come across information that is incorrect. The risk is ending up believing something that is not true. This can be especially worrisome when it comes to matters concerning your health. Diagnosing medical issues online might not be a good idea.
First of all, when you diagnose yourself online, you can end up reading information that is incorrect. Plus, many different conditions have similar symptomatology. In addition to this, without the correct medical training, you don’t know how such information really applies to you because all your individual biometrics and circumstances need to be taken into consideration in order to make a proper diagnosis. All of this showcases why diagnosing health problems online rarely gives you an accurate diagnosis. Use the internet as a starting point, check your sources, and get testing to validate your medical concerns so you can proceed and find the root cause of your problem.
Now that you know the facts about the most common health myths, you can put them to bed. By learning the truth about some of the frequent misconceptions about health, you can stick to the evidence to keep your body in good health.
To a Fitter Healthier You,
The Fitness Wellness Mentor
