We’ve all heard the old wives’ tale that you must sit out of the pool thirty minutes or even an hour after eating or else you will get cramps and drown. Because of the dire consequence, many of us have heeded this wives’ tale and waited until it was safe to go in the water again. However, when you really think about it, does the wives’ tale make sense? I mean if you were to eat a Popsicle do you really need to sit out as long as someone who ate a steak, even though the Popsicle is a much lighter “meal” than the steak? And does lounging on a pool float really count as swimming?

Eat all that meat and swim - mother says no

The truth is that there is no truth to this wives’ tale as far as eating, swimming, and drowning go. However, there is some truth to eating and getting cramps. Every time you eat, the blood supply to the stomach is increased in order to help you to digest your food. If you were to exercise after eating then the blood supply that is needed for the muscles to function would be concentrated in the stomach and not in the muscles. This loss of blood would result in cramps in the extremities of the legs and arms. According to the wives’ tale, the resulting cramps would leave a person unable to swim and thus drown. In truth, it doesn’t matter whether you are vigorously swimming or running a marathon on a full stomach; if you exercise too soon after eating you can get cramps.

Cramp! Cramp! Cramp! (It’s like the Candyman that way)

Notice I said, “can,” not “will.” This brings us to the other part of the old wives’ tale: how much food and exercise is too much?
There really isn’t a well written rule on how much food is too much; you have to use your own personal judgement. A few biscuits, an apple, or a bag of chips won’t result in cramps. However, a complete meal is a lot more likely to result in cramps. This, of course, assumes that you are vigorously exercising. The majority of people that are swimming are only recreational swimming. Recreational swimming simply means that a person may be lounging around talking with friends, playing with kids, or just enjoying the water. This type of behaviour usually isn’t vigorous enough to result in cramps. Swimming several laps, regardless of speed, would be considered vigorous however and caution would need to be used after eating if you plan to swim laps.

This sort of thing after eating’s fine

If you do get a cramp the best thing to do is remain calm and to tense the muscle. After tensing the muscle, relax it. After doing this a few times, the cramp should subside. If that doesn’t work, you can also float until the cramp subsides or help arrives. As for the answer to the question, “how long should you wait after eating to swim?”, if, and only if, you are planning on vigorously swimming and eating a large meal, then you should definitely wait one hour. This will not only help your food digest and help you to avoid painful cramps, it will also help you to perform better.

Cramp is not to be taken lightly

Now there is also another wives’ tale concerning eating, swimming, and fainting. The tale involves eating and swimming afterwards with the end result being fainting and drowning. The science behind this wives’ tale is that after eating, your temperature increases slightly because you are digesting food. As you enter the pool with a slightly increased temperature, the cool water will shock your body and the result would be fainting. Fainting in water, of course, could mean drowning. However, the temperature increase because of digestion is only a slight increase and in fact is no more than the increase that sunbathing can cause.

You may even faint from the food/water situation

Of course fainting can be caused by other things as well. When you are outside on a hot day, you will perspire. This perspiration helps to cool your body, but without proper hydration you can become dehydrated. Dehydration can lead to fainting as well. The correlation between this and swimming is that while you are in the water, you can still perspire even if you don’t feel hot or realize that you are perspiring. This means you could become severely dehydrated without even knowing it and ultimately faint while in the water. So the point here is that while you are out swimming, eating will not cause you to faint but by the same token you need to make sure that you are consuming plenty of fluids in order to avoid dehydration and possible fainting.

Drink plenty of water!

Now there should be a distinction made here between fluids and alcoholic drinks. A study that was published in the journal ‘Paediatrics’ showed that when alcoholic drinks were consumed while eating, the risk of drowning did increase. Of course, to me this seems pretty self-explanatory. Alcohol and swimming are never a good combination. In these situations there may be an illusion that the food would absorb the alcohol and therefore leave the person in suitable condition for swimming. However, this is just an illusion. Just as a person is a poor judge of their ability for drinking and driving, a person can be equally inept at judging their ability for drinking and swimming. There really is no time limit for how long to wait to swim after drinking because it depends on how much a person consumes. One beer won’t impair your judgement as much as a bottle of wine. In short, it is never a good idea to mix drinking and swimming. Doing so may result in serious injury or death. Therefore, it’s best to leave alcohol behind when you will be in and around water.

Stay away from the beer till after the swimming

There is one more point to make concerning eating and swimming. If you were to eat a large meal and then vigorously swim or perform any other high impact exercise, you are highly likely to see your meal again. Throwing up your meal is never good and the best rule of thumb is to wait at least an hour after eating a meal to exercise in order to avoid this unwelcomed fate. Even if for some weird reason you don’t mind throwing up, the people around you might. Besides being disgusting, you’ll need to remember that the pool must be shut down when vomit is present in order to treat the water and as the mother of a child who threw up in the pool, trust me when I tell you that you never want to be the reason why people have to abandon their workout or their day at the pool.

Everyone out! Someone’s been sick!

So the next time you go out to lounge by the pool, remember that it doesn’t really matter how much you eat and how long you wait to swim. Make sure you aren’t exerting yourself too much, remain calm in the event you do get a cramp, and consume plenty of non-alcoholic fluids to avoid dehydration. Doing these things will lead to a wonderful time by the water and leave you feeling fine. However, whenever you do go swimming regardless of whether you eat or not, it always wise to follow the golden rule, “Never Swim Alone.”

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Filed under Blog, Holiday