Mom doesn't know best: myths to avoid

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Although Elizabeth Kendall’s mother told her standing in front of the microwave would give her cancer, she stands in front of microwaves anyway.

Contrary to popular belief, mother doesn’t always know best.

The saying has been disproved, whether it be by evidence that suggests otherwise about what parents tell their children or a person discovering on their own that maybe the advice mom gave wasn’t always sound.

Kendall, a communicative sciences and disorders senior, said her mom would tell her to walk away from the microwave to avoid radioactive waves that would emit from the appliance.

“I don’t know if she even really believed it,” Kendall said. “I think that was a craze at the time, discovering everything causes cancer.”

You don’t have to clear your plate

Eating habits are a common area in which parents might give faulty advice to have a more compliant child.

An eating habit parents weren’t giving the best advice on, is finishing all the food on your plate, said Diane Fischer, a registered dietician and nutrition professor at MSU.

“Mom was probably trying to teach you good manners,” Fischer said. “But now we can listen to our appetite.”

Fischer said when eating, ask yourself if it’s because you are actually hungry or if it is related to stress or other social pressures.

“There’s no reason to overeat,” Fischer said. She recommended waiting 20 minutes after a meal to see if the hunger persists and then continuing to finish the food.

Make sure to eat your breakfast and your veggies

Fischer, who has a daughter of her own, said there are practices she uses in her home that children can take with them as they age. Eating breakfast, for instance, is an eating habit that will be important no matter the age of the person.

“We don’t leave the house without breakfast, and we eat breakfast as a family,” Fischer said.

In the Fischer household, there also is always a bowl of fresh fruit to grab on the go, she said. One of the issues with not wanting to eat mom’s food is that maybe it wasn’t cooked to the person’s liking. Fischer said the habit can be changed once children are on their own and discover different cooking habits themselves.

Not liking certain fruits or vegetables can be solved by trying other types of vegetables with a similar coloring because they will provide similar nutrients, Fischer said.

“If you hate broccoli, you can eat some other dark green vegetable,” she said.

Sitting too close to the TV? No worries

Food wasn’t the only area mom might have been wrong about. Certain eye care pointers, such as telling children that sitting too close to the TV will ruin their eyes, might be incorrect as well, said Lenny Silverman, an optometrist at Okemos Optometry, 2080 Hamilton Road, in Okemos.

“It can cause eye strain much like doing extended computer work, but sitting too close to the TV will not ‘ruin’ your eyes,” Silverman said. “The visual stimulus from a monitor or TV at a close distance causes a person to scan for the information they are trying to view. This is more of a strain with computers because we are searching for data, words and numerical data,” he said.

When it comes to eyestrain because of constant focusing, Silverman said the bigger issue is children spending too much time on the computer or playing video games as opposed to sitting too close to the TV, Silverman said.

A father of two daughters of his own, Silverman said when his children were growing up, he would limit their time in front of a screen.

“After 45 minutes, it was time to do something else,” he said.

Keep on reading in the dark

Another activity mom warned about, reading in the dark, does not actually cause blurred vision, said Rob Diegel, optometrist and owner of Eyes-4U Vision Studio, 205 M.A.C. Ave. While the eye focusing system goes kaput between the ages of 40 and 50, the change often is noticed first by trying to read in the dark, Diegel said.

“But blurred vision while reading in the dark does not mean reading in the dark caused the blurred vision,” Diegel said. “It is amazing how most mistakes are caused from really bad logic.”

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