Can You Swim After Consuming?

There are a number of commonalities throughout childhood swimming experiences in the USA that I’d enterprise to guess you is likely to be aware of. Did you ever play Marco Polo? Maybe you rode round on foam pool noodles with your mates? Did you drink Capri Suns and snack on Cheetos Puffs across the perimeter of the water as I did? 

Even when not one of the above rings true for you, I’m nearly sure you’ve heard of the extensively accepted pool knowledge that many dad and mom share with their children: Don’t swim for at the least half-hour (or generally an hour, relying on which grownup you are asking) after you’ve eaten.

I heard this outdated adage all through my childhood, and like many others, I’ve lengthy accepted it as true. However once you replicate on this “reality” for a minute or two, it raises the query: Why can’t you swim for at the least half-hour after consuming? In a latest episode of the podcast ScienceStuff, host and former roboticist Jorge Cham takes listeners on a deep dive into this attainable fantasy, exploring what it means precisely, if there’s any diploma of reality to it, and whether or not we will begin consuming extra snacks proper earlier than we hop within the pool.

The place did this fantasy come from?

Even the supply of this age-old knowledge is considerably shrouded in thriller. Cham explains that neither he nor anybody he consulted may definitively decide the place the advice to attend half-hour earlier than swimming originated. Nonetheless, the earliest documented point out of this recommendation that he can discover comes from a considerably surprising supply: the unique Boy Scout handbook from 1908, Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell. 

This e book — which was wildly common within the early twentieth century — affords a variety of recommendation, from sensible abilities corresponding to the best way to use a compass to knowledge that doesn’t endure, like climate predictions corresponding to “a yellow sundown means wind.”

The latter is unsurprising, contemplating it is a textual content from over 100 years in the past. But, hidden inside its pages is a chunk of counsel that’s nonetheless handed on as we speak: “By no means bathe in deep water very quickly after a meal, it is extremely prone to trigger cramp, which doubles you up, and so that you get drowned.” And right here is the place the 30-minute fantasy begins — at the least to the very best of our information.

Is swimming after consuming harmful?

Because the language on this archival Boy Scout handbook signifies, the “rule” that you just shouldn’t swim for at the least half-hour after consuming arises from a worry that doing so may result in a cramp extreme sufficient to trigger drowning.

To find out whether or not this concern is justified, Cham consults a perfect supply: Dr. Matthew Badgett, a doctor specializing in inside drugs and pediatric main care on the Cleveland Clinic, who additionally occurred to be a aggressive swimmer in highschool. (Badgett has additionally spoken in regards to the relationship between swimming and consuming earlier than.)

To begin, Badgett highlights the contradiction in dad and mom advising kids towards consuming proper earlier than swimming, whereas concurrently encouraging them to eat and drink simply earlier than different actions — corresponding to soccer — to forestall cramps.

Recalling his personal childhood, he says, “I all the time had a powerful barometer for hypocrisy, however I all the time thought this rule actually made no sense to me.” He additionally notes that “I may bodily inform the distinction if I had two items of toast after which went and swam an hour at 5:30, 6 a.m. in highschool, versus if I did not eat it, I might be dragging.”

Total, the physician emphasizes that for strenuous actions corresponding to biking and operating, you want energy to gasoline your physique; this additionally applies to aggressive swimming.

Though most individuals aren’t exercising vigorously whereas swimming in a pool, Badgett explains that in his pediatric coaching, he by no means realized something indicating whether or not it is best to or shouldn’t eat earlier than swimming in any situation. He has additionally by no means had a mum or dad strategy him with a problem brought on by their youngster consuming shortly after swimming.

Along with Badgett’s expertise as a physician and his logical argument towards the archaic rule towards consuming and swimming, Cham additionally examines revealed scientific proof confirming that there’s nothing to fret about.

In 2011, the American Pink Cross Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)  revealed a complete evaluate of present research on the results of consuming earlier than swimming. It in the end concluded that, “At the moment out there info means that consuming earlier than swimming isn’t a contributing threat for drowning and could be dismissed as a fantasy.”

Much more importantly, the American Pink Cross has revealed steering as just lately as 2024 stating that “Swimming inside one hour of consuming meals in grownup and youngster leisure or aggressive swimmers doesn’t enhance the chance of drowning.” 

Can swimming after consuming make you’re feeling sick?

Whereas proof exhibits there’s no inherent hazard in swimming quickly after consuming, there stays the likelihood that it may trigger nausea or discomfort. In actual fact, Cham notes that a number of research reviewed by the SAC discovered “that the swimmers who went swimming [in] thirty minutes or much less reported a big quantity of discomfort and nausea. It was not a great swimming expertise for them.”

To grasp why this happens requires a short biology lesson. Dr. Stephen Ives, an affiliate professor of well being and human physiological sciences at Skidmore School, explains that once you’re at relaxation, your coronary heart pumps the suitable quantity of blood to all of the programs in your physique based mostly on their wants.

This contains your digestive system, and Ives particulars that “Your mind’s getting what’s wanted, the guts’s getting what it wants, the muscular tissues are getting some, the intestine is getting what it wants.”

If you train, your cardiac output — the quantity of blood your coronary heart pumps per minute — will increase. On the similar time, the precedence of blood stream to completely different bodily programs shifts, as sure areas require vitamins, vitality, and oxygen from the blood when you exert your self. “There is a excessive demand for blood stream, for the vitamins, for the oxygen to assist vitality manufacturing so the muscular tissues can maintain doing their factor and contracting.

“That may come at [the] price of a number of the different organs. So on a proportion foundation, the intestine goes from getting perhaps 25% of the blood that is pumped out by the guts per minute to perhaps a pair p.c. It will get lower dramatically,” Ives explains.

This implies your digestive course of will doubtless be slower. Should you’ve simply eaten a really massive and calorically dense meal — or one thing excessive in fats, which could be tougher to digest — it would sit in your abdomen for longer and trigger discomfort. You possibly can think about this as a sensation similar to in case you went for a run proper after an enormous meal. You would do it and be high-quality, however your abdomen may really feel a bit of unsettled.

However blood stream isn’t the one issue contributing to attainable sluggish digestion whereas swimming. Ives factors out that gastric emptying, the method of meals shifting out of your abdomen to your small gut, happens extra rapidly once you’re standing or sitting upright in comparison with mendacity down. If you swim, you’re technically horizontal, which may additionally result in slower digestion and discomfort.

Ives factors out {that a} frequent reason for muscle cramps is an absence of electrolytes, which could be obtained from meals like bananas, spinach, milk, dill pickles, and lots of others. If it has been too lengthy because you consumed a great supply of electrolytes, it may result in cramps whereas swimming. Cham summarizes this by saying, “It seems like you do not wish to eat too near swimming, however you do wish to eat one thing beforehand in some unspecified time in the future,” to make sure you have gasoline and electrolytes.

What does this imply for you?

Based on the Pink Cross’ steering, you needn’t fear about any severe hazard from consuming inside half-hour of swimming. As Ives concludes, “It is probably not a security situation. I might say under-nutrition might be extra of a security situation. It is extra of a consolation situation.”

You possibly can undoubtedly swim proper after consuming, however in case you’ve had a big meal, it is likely to be smart to attend for about half-hour to keep away from feeling nauseous. Should you’ve solely had a lightweight snack, you doubtless don’t want to fret in any respect, which is nice information for these of us who love snacking and swimming.