Can You Swim After Consuming?

There are just a few commonalities throughout childhood swimming experiences in america that I’d enterprise to guess you is likely to be conversant in. Did you ever play Marco Polo? Maybe you rode round on foam pool noodles with your folks? 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 broadly accepted pool knowledge that many mother and father share with their children: Don’t swim for a minimum of half-hour (or typically 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I heard this outdated adage all through my childhood, and like many others, I’ve lengthy accepted it as true.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 if you replicate on this “reality” for a minute or two, it raises the query: Why can’t you swim for a minimum of 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 potential fable, exploring what it means precisely, if there’s any diploma of fact to it, and whether or not we are able to begin consuming extra snacks proper earlier than we hop within the pool.

The place did this fable 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 guide from 1908, Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell. 

This ebook — which was wildly well-liked within the early twentieth century — gives a variety of recommendation, from sensible abilities resembling learn how to use a compass to knowledge that doesn’t endure, like climate predictions resembling “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 at this time: “By no means bathe in deep water very quickly after a meal, it is vitally prone to trigger cramp, which doubles you up, and so that you get drowned.” And right here is the place the 30-minute fable begins — a minimum of to the most effective of our data.

Is swimming after consuming harmful?

Because the language on this archival Boy Scout guide signifies, the “rule” that you simply shouldn’t swim for a minimum of half-hour after consuming arises from a concern 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 great 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 concerning the relationship between swimming and consuming earlier than.)

To begin, Badgett highlights the contradiction in mother and father advising youngsters towards consuming proper earlier than swimming, whereas concurrently encouraging them to eat and drink simply earlier than different actions — resembling soccer — to forestall cramps.

Recalling his personal childhood, he says, “I all the time had a robust 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’d be dragging.”

Total, the physician emphasizes that for strenuous actions resembling biking and operating, you want energy to gas 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’s best to or shouldn’t eat earlier than swimming in any state of affairs. He has additionally by no means had a guardian strategy him with a difficulty attributable to their baby consuming shortly after swimming.

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

In 2011, the American Purple Cross Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)  printed a complete overview of present research on the results of consuming earlier than swimming. It finally concluded that, “Presently accessible data means that consuming earlier than swimming just isn’t a contributing threat for drowning and will be dismissed as a fable.”

Much more importantly, the American Purple Cross has printed steering as lately as 2024 stating that “Swimming inside one hour of consuming meals in grownup and baby 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 quick biology lesson. Dr. Stephen Ives, an affiliate professor of well being and human physiological sciences at Skidmore School, explains that if you’re at relaxation, your coronary heart pumps the suitable quantity of blood to all of the techniques in your physique primarily based 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.”

Once you train, your cardiac output — the quantity of blood your coronary heart pumps per minute — will increase. On the identical time, the precedence of blood circulation to totally different bodily techniques shifts, as sure areas require vitamins, power, and oxygen from the blood when you exert your self. “There is a excessive demand for blood circulation, for the vitamins, for the oxygen to help power manufacturing so the muscular tissues can hold doing their factor and contracting.

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

This implies your digestive course of will probably be slower. Should you’ve simply eaten a really giant and calorically dense meal — or one thing excessive in fats, which will be tougher to digest — it would sit in your abdomen for longer and trigger discomfort. You may think about this as a sensation similar to in the event you went for a run proper after an enormous meal. You might do it and be superb, however your abdomen may really feel just a little unsettled.

However blood circulation isn’t the one issue contributing to potential gradual 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 if you’re standing or sitting upright in comparison with mendacity down. Once you swim, you’re technically horizontal, which may additionally result in slower digestion and discomfort.

Ives factors out {that a} frequent explanation for muscle cramps is a scarcity of electrolytes, which will be obtained from meals like bananas, spinach, milk, dill pickles, and plenty 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 feels like you do not need to eat too near swimming, however you do need to eat one thing beforehand in some unspecified time in the future,” to make sure you have gas and electrolytes.

What does this imply for you?

In line with the Purple Cross’ steering, you needn’t fear about any severe hazard from consuming inside half-hour of swimming. As Ives concludes, “It is not likely a security subject. I’d say under-nutrition might be extra of a security subject. It is extra of a consolation subject.”

You may positively swim proper after consuming, however in the event 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 probably don’t want to fret in any respect, which is nice information for these of us who love snacking and swimming.