The lies I heard when I was a boy

A meta-analysis of 15 studies covering 50,000 participants has busted the myth that you should walk 10,000 steps every day. Never trust any number that is so beautifully rounded. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using Midjourney

When I was a stripling of eight, I saw a black-and-white line sketch of a fearsome Mexican demon in an issue of Mad magazine, like Pazuzu, the one in The Exorcist. The caption read: Whosoever beholdeth this image will die in exactly one year. The date was May 22.

I knew with chilling finality that I was a goner, though I told no one. This was my personal chilling secret and I didn't think my parents or anyone else could help me avert disaster. They'd just have to say I was snatched away before my time.

On May 22, a year later, I was at a family wedding in the town of Kummanam, Kerala. It was a grand four-day event with nadaswarams rending the air, a garlanded baby elephant swaying in a stable somewhere and children playing hide and seek all over the grounds around the house.

I was on full alert, looking around me and trying to guess how and where the end would come. Would the baby elephant trample me to death? Would a falling green coconut crush my skull? And then I saw it - a pond where all the children were splashing around, beckoning me to join them. This was it. Death by drowning in muddy water.

But it was a no-show. History records that I survived and lived on to inflict this humble column on you, obsessed reader. I shared that little story to make a little point: I have tended to believe most things I'm told. As a boy, it was worse: I believed 100 per cent of what I was told and read.

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Examples: Carrots improve eyesight. The colour red enrages bulls. Goldfish have a three-second memory. The Great Wall of China is visible from outer space. Shaving makes hair grow thicker. We only use 10 per cent of our brains.

You will doubtless have your own list but I'm in a myth-busting mood this morning, three in particular.

En garde!

Sleep tight or sleep light? I believed for decades that I was sleep-deprived because I was not getting my regulation eight hours nightly. Thanks to the gadgets I now wear that measure me round the clock, and their Help menus,

I now know that there is absolutely nothing sacred about eight hours. That number changes from babyhood to senility. The National Sleep Foundation says infants sleep 14-17 hours a day. Between ages six and 12, you need 9-12 hours. But from 18 to 60 and beyond, most people need just seven hours. And if you're Rip Van Winkle, that sleep will be full of pee breaks, midnight snacks, tossing and turning, and the occasional dreamtime. All good.

How many steps, please? Let's slay another myth: you should walk 10,000 steps every day. The golden rule here is never trust any number that is so beautifully rounded. And if that number keeps cropping up in other parlours, definitely heed the warning tingle of doubt. I read in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers that 10,000 was the number of hours of practice that would make you an expert in any field.

Sorry, that was too much of a muchness. I dug into the research and it turned out that there is no magic to 10,000. A meta-analysis of 15 studies covering 50,000 participants done by Amanda Paluch of the University of Massachusetts found that between 6,000 and 8,000 daily steps is sufficient for most people.

Meanwhile, there seems to be consensus that walking a little faster is more than a little better, and that walking in nature wakes up your brain more than doing it on a treadmill indoors.

I'll just have water, thanks. Yes, the one about eight glasses of water is another floater. Never trust repeating numbers: eight hours of sleep, water, days in a week (according to the Beatles). US nutritionist Dr Frederick J Stare says that the body is better than good at regulating its water needs and that if you drink water when you feel thirsty, you should do just fine. The books don't mention this but you can get your water equally from coffee, tea, milk, fruits and vegetables - and yes, also lattes, Cokes and beer.

About those childhood beliefs that were burnt into my infant brain? Carrots do contain vitamin A, which is great for eye health. However, you'd have to eat a wicker basket full of carrots a day to meet the daily requirement. What's more, too much of vitamin A is toxic and causes hypervitaminosis A.

Bulls, it turns out, are colour-blind and can't see red. What agitates them in the arena is not the colour but the sweeping movement of the bullfighter's cape.

The myth about goldfish, I suspect, comes from guilty owners. Goldfish have such stunning memories that they're often used for studying memory and learning in fishes, according to Culum Brown, fish expert from Macquarie University.

Which brings us to the visibility of the Great Wall of China from outer space, whether shaving thickens hair and if 90 per cent of your brain lies unused through your life.

Well, the answers are in. It's no, no, and no.

You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.