eating

I used to believe if you only chewed food on one side of your mouth, that you would only grow on that side of your body. So, I had to chew evenly on both sides ...

Syd

When I was a kid, whenever I heard someone saying that they were on a diet, it was always an overweight person. So, I thought that "on a diet" was just a polite way of saying "fat". Once, my mom (who wasn't heavy) mentioned that she was on a diet. I kept arguing with her, saying, "No, you're not!".

Joe Martinez

I used to believe that when you ate food, it came alive in your stomach. (remarkably, i pictured it whole, as in before I'd chewed it.) I thought you got that "full" feeling because the food was pushing out on your stomach. I also believed this was how people got fat, because their food pushed too hard.

Brianne

When I was younger my brother and I would listen to each others stomachs. My mother told us that it made these noises because there was worms inside there. I believed that worms were in my stomach with there own little control room controling my body and even controling the thought I had about them.

valerie

When I was little I use to believe there were drawers in my stomach so whatever I ate had its own draw that would open and catch it

Rikki

As a very young kid (three or four), I liked putting marbles in my mouth (something about the smoothness) and my mom would always get upset when I did. As expected, I eventually swallowed one on accident. Frantic that my mom would somehow know, I figured out how to remove it. All I needed to do was stand on my head! Brilliant! Five-minutes later, with a face red from blood rushing to my head, I just gave up and told my mom what had happened. She got upset, but then she taught me about the esophagus and told me I would just poop the marble out.

Nikko

When I was a kid, I had this idea that the inside of the torso was basically hollow. If you swallowed food, it would fall out of a hole at the base of the neck and into this cavernous region. At the bottom it would fall into stomach acid (for some reason I knew about stomach acid but not the stomach itself) and the walls were just skin/muscle tissue. I don't remember when it dawned on me that there were organs and bones in there, but I do remember that, at least for a few moments, I was cautious about accepting this "anti-hollow" theory.

Nikko

when i was little i believed that when you ate food it would fill up your body all the way to your neck...when dessert came around i would always say the i had room for dessert because dessert fills up you head...now i know that all food goes into your stomach

brittany

I used to believe that when you eat something it goes to your foot and everything you eat after that gets higher and higher in your body. Once it gets to your head a doctor has to surgically cut open your chest and take out the food and after the doctor takes out the food, you are empty and you can eat more.

Wexler!

I used to believe that if I didn't chew food the same number of times on each side of my mouth before swallowing it, that my teeth would think I had favorite ones and get mad at each other. Since I didn't want them fighting in the night and waking me up, I always made sure that I chewed equally on both sides!

Kim

When I was little I had no idea what my body looked like under my skin. I thought I was completely hollow inside, I thought that when I ate, the food would fall down to my toes. Sometimes I would sit and worry about what would happen when I was older and my insides were all filled up with food.

Jill

When i was little i believed that when you ate something it went into a pit in your stomach and that old people died of the food in their tummies overflowing into their throats.

kids these days (im 15 now)

Michele

I used to imagine a bunch of little men in your body "digesting" your food for you.

weird_kid

I used to believe that the food you ate kind of piled up in your stomach.

Anon

When I was young, I had a huge appetite, and my grandmother would tell me that I had a hollow leg, so I'd knock on my legs to see if they sounded differently... it still makes me laugh 35yrs. later!

Joy

When I was little I didnt know anything about the digestive system so I thought when you ate food it would all just fill up from your feet to your head.

I thought that when you threw up it meant that the food was filled up past your head.

I thought that fat people were just people that use to be skinny but they ate so much that they filled up to their heads abnd just expanded.

Anon

When I was very young I believed that our bodies were hollow and whatever you ate or drank went down to the bottom of your feet and gradually filled you up. This process took years and when you were "full" at a very ripe old age, and there was no more room, you just died.

Anon

When i was five, my dad gave me a bite of steak to try. I didn't like it and went to spit it out in the toilet. Having nothing to do with this event, i started to cough in the bathroom. My dad ran in, and after finding that i was fine, angrily said ''i thought you were choking!'' His extreme reaction brought forth a chain of thoughts in my mind. The likelihood of choking to death weighed heavily on me and i refused to eat anything for over a week. During that time, i remember going to an ice cream parlour with my dad who was trying to order me an ice cream sundae (something that to him seemed impossible to choke on) and just the thought of possibly being served one topped with nuts made me cry uncontrollably in the restaurant...i remember him looking at me as though he thought i'd probably end up starving myself to death.

Anon

When I was very little, of course, I didn't know much about the inside of the human body so in my imagination, I would picture it. I thought that inside of me there were little sacks for all the different kinds of food and little people on platforms held by ropes that could lower up and down. These little people would catch the food as it came down and sort it into their respective sacks. For instance, if you ate a carrot it would go into the carrot sack. I guess the thought of all that food going down and being mushed together was just too gross a thought to fathom. Little men & little sacks - much more appealing indeed!

Joan Muir