I remember when I was little, I would go to this little camp thing at the sports center, um, in my town, and they had this health guy come in and he basically said, like, you can’t drink sodas because they’re really bad for you. But the thing is, like how he described it. I guess he did it as a scare tactic cause he also said, like, if you drink sodas what it does it like it crystallizes in your stomach and it makes your stomach hard and like makes a hole in your stomach. So like, I guess I just thought I was a bad ass and kept drinking sodas but at the same time in the back of my mind, I always felt like I was slowly killing myself drinking sodas, like a hole was just gonna form in my stomach.

So how old were you?

I was probably like, early elementary school.

And this was at a camp?

Yeah it was at this little—I think it was at a summer program at a sports center at the Swarny Sports Academy.

When did you figure out that this wasn’t true?

I don’t know. I guess went I kept drinking sodas so much and my stomach never like burst a hole in it that I was like, well this guy was obviously a douche bag.

Did you ever tell other kids that? That soda was going to kill them?

No I didn’t. But I just knew it myself, and I guess that just stuck in the back of my mind.

So he told this to all the kids?

Yeah, he told that to everyone.

Did that stop anyone?

I don’t think so.

My Reaction:

Of course, I know that soda is bad for you. And I also know that coke can effectively be used to clean a toilet bowl. However, I never heard someone say that soda would crystallize in your stomach and poke a hole in you. I’m not sure whether the person who made this claim actually believed in it or not, but the odds are that he just tried to use this to stop kids from drinking so much soda. Over a long period of time, too much soda can lead to health issues, so while it’s an exaggeration, there is some validity to the idea that soda will cause bad things to happen to your body.