Must-Read: Ignore These Body Myths

Throughout your life, you’ll be bombarded by plenty of myths posing as fact. Remember back in grade school when we were all under the assumption that girls had cooties? Turns out, they didn’t. Or remember that Atkins Diet fad back in the 90s that, upon further examination, really didn’t do much at all? Back in the 50s there was “proof” from just about everyone that smoking actually has health benefits. These are all myths that, for whatever reason, have found themselves in the realm of “actual, legitimate, undeniable reality” and to actually attack them is to risk sounding like an idiot to your friends.

Crack away!

That’s what I was thinking about when I was reading this fascinating article over at AskMen.comabout the “old wives tales” regarding the human body that are generally accepted as being reality, but really are just a load of crap. For instance, when I was a tyke, my mom would constantly tell me that whenever I cracked my knuckles I was risking a future life of crippling arthritis. But really:

No.3?Cracking your knuckles will cause arthritis

If every crack of a knuckle took us one step closer to arthritis, there would be a lot more aching hands in the population. That pop you hear has nothing to do with the bones; it?s the sound of a small bubble of gas bursting, and there is no evidence to show that it will lead to arthritis, which is most often a symptom of plain old age, weight pressure or previous injury. But if you are a regular cracker, you might want to ease off. It has been shown that it does slightly weaken finger joints, leading to a less impressive grip later in life.

All the big ones are there: Waking up sleepwalkers, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, and ruining your eyesight by reading in the dark. So head over to the link and get rid of some of the horse dong myths out there.