By Robert Cumber

Copyright glasgowworld

There are many ‘facts’ we were fed in the 80s that turned out to be fictionThey were widely believed to be true back then, but have since been disprovedFrom chewing gum to cockroaches, how many of these do you remember hearing?

The 80s witnessed many remarkable scientific breakthroughs, from the launch of the first Space Shuttle to an artificial heart being successfully transplanted into a human.

But while the world’s greatest minds made major strides, we mere mortals were being fed many myths and half-truths, which many of us swallowed unthinkingly.

Below are just some of the common misconceptions that circulated widely during the 80s but have since been disproved.

If you grew up in the 80s you almost certainly heard some of these, whether it was from teachers, your parents or on some of the decade’s most popular TV shows and movies.

Sitting too close to the TV will ruin your eyesight

Anyone of a certain age will remember being chastised as a child for sitting too close to the TV.

It will ruin your eyes for good, we were told, but it turns out that’s not strictly true.

While sitting too close to the box can cause eye strain, leading to temporary discomfort, there’s no evidence it does any permanent damage to your eyesight.

Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years

We’ve all done it. but is there any truth to the old adage that if you accidentally swallow a piece of chewing gum it will remain in your stomach for seven years?

It’s something parents and teachers often told youngsters in the 80s – probably believing it to be true themselves, but also perhaps hoping it would put those children off what they saw as a nasty habit.

It turns out there’s no need to fret if you’ve accidentally gulped down your gum.

While our bodies may not be able to digest chewing gum, it doesn’t stick to our insides. It makes the same journey through our digestive system as any other food we eat, before being ejected out of the opposite end from which it entered.

Songs contained hidden satanic messages

Not everyone fell for the hysteria during the so-called ‘satanic panic’ of the 80s, when devil-worshipping was supposedly rife.

But some people genuinely believed there were satanic messages hidden within popular songs by bands from Styx to Black Sabbath.

The most famous example was Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin. The song was released in 1971, but it was another decade before claims began circulating that playing a certain section of the track backwards revealed a reference to ‘my sweet Satan’.

Many people genuinely believed this at the time, despite strenous denials by Robert Plant and his bandmates, who sensibly pointed out they had much better things to be doing in the studio than wasting time creating hidden messages.

Don’t swim after eating

Any child of the 80s will recall being told not to eat straight after eating. Some people said to leave it half an hour, others recommended a whole hour.

The myth was that ignoring the advice could lead to drowning because blood was diverted from your muscles to your stomach to help digest your meal.

But as AXA Health’s Mythbusters campaign points out, a healthy body can easily support both digestion and movement.

It says there’s no need to wait to go swimming after eating, though some people may prefer to give it a little while to avoid ‘minor digestive discomfort’.

A penny dropped from a skyscraper can kill you

This was a terrifying thought for anyone walking through a big city in the 80s, when this myth was doing the rounds.

The theory was that even a penny dropped from a very tall building would gain so much momentum as it fell that the force would be enough to kill someone walking below by the time it reached the ground.

But simple science explains that while an object initially accelerates as it falls, it will soon reach its maximum speed – or ‘terminal velocity’ – when air resistance matches gravity.

For a penny, this is around 25mph, at which speed it would simply bounce off your head.

It would take something considerably heavier to cause you serious damage.

A cockroach is the only thing that would survive a nuclear apocalypse

Cockroaches are remarkably resilient creatures, but is there any truth behind the once-popular belief that they would be the only living things to survive a direct nuclear blast?

This rumour is believed to date back to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Cockroaches were supposedly seen scuttling through the debris following the devastating blasts, which killed more than 200,000 people.

The belief gained fresh impetus at the height of the Cold War when the world feared another nuclear strike.

In 2012, the US TV show Mythbusters put the theory to the test. It found that cockroaches exposed to radioactive material survived for longer than humans would, but they did eventually perish when the radiation reached extreme levels.

Other tests have suggested that while they can withstand high levels of radiation compared to humans, cockroaches have less resistance than some other insects, such as fruit flies.

Which popular myth do you remember from your childhood, and how old were you when you learned the truth?

If you’re looking for another blast of 80s nostalgia, why not check out our list of things you wish you did back then but probably didn’t?