To get rid of hic­cups, have some­one star­tle you.

The truth is: Most home reme­dies, like hold­ing your breath or drink­ing from a glass of wa­ter back­ward, haven't been med­ical­ly proven to be ef­fec­tive, says David Pol­lack, a se­nior physi­cian in the Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal of Philadel­phia Care Net­work. How­ev­er, you can try this trick dat­ing back to 1971, when it was pub­lished in The New Eng­land Jour­nal of Med­i­cine: Swal­low one tea­spoon of white gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar. Ac­cord­ing to the study, this tac­tic re­sult­ed in the ces­sa­tion of hic­cups in 19 out of 20 af­flict­ed pa­tients. Sweet.

You Shouldn't cut off the bread's crust. it's full of vi­t­a­mins.

The truth is: In a 2002 Ger­man study, re­searchers found that the bak­ing process pro­duces a nov­el type of can­cer-fight­ing an­tiox­i­dant in bread that is eight times more abun­dant in the crust than in the crumb. That said, it's more im­por­tant to serve whole-wheat bread, with or with­out the crust, be­cause it's all around high­er in nu­tri­ents, such as fiber, says New York City nu­tri­tion­ist Keri Glass­man, au­thor of The O2 Di­et . Make sure the in­gre­di­ents list "100 per cent whole-wheat flour." Breads sim­ply la­beled "wheat" are usu­al­ly made with a mix­ture of en­riched white flour and whole-wheat flour and have less fiber.

If you cross your eyes, they'll stay that way.

The truth is: "There's no harm in vol­un­tary eye cross­ing," says W Walk­er Mot­ley, an as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor of oph­thal­mol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cincin­nati Col­lege of Med­i­cine. But if you no­tice your child do­ing this a lot (when he's not mim­ic­k­ing a car­toon char­ac­ter), he might have oth­er vi­sion prob­lems.

If you go out with wet hair, you'll catch a cold.

The truth is: You will feel cold but will be just fine health­wise, says Jim Sears, a board-cer­ti­fied pe­di­a­tri­cian in San Clemente, Cal­i­for­nia, and a co­host of the day­time-TV show The Doc­tors. He cites a study done at the Com­mon Cold Re­search Unit, in Sal­is­bury, Eng­land, in which a group of vol­un­teers was in­oc­u­lat­ed with a cold virus up their noses. Half the group stayed in a warm room while the rest took a bath and stood drip­ping wet in a hall­way for half an hour, then got dressed but wore wet socks for a few more hours. The wet group didn't catch any more colds than the dry. Sears's con­clu­sion: "Feel­ing cold doesn't af­fect your im­mune sys­tem."

You should feed a cold and starve a fever.

The truth is: In both cas­es, eat and drink, then drink some more. "Stay­ing hy­drat­ed is the most im­por­tant thing to do, be­cause you lose a lot of flu­ids when you're ill," says Sears, who adds that there's no need for spe­cial bev­er­ages con­tain­ing elec­trolytes (like Gatorade) un­less you're se­vere­ly de­hy­drat­ed from vom­it­ing or di­ar­rhea.

You lose 75 per cent of your body heat through your head.

The truth is: "This adage was prob­a­bly based on an in­fant's head size, which is a much greater per­cent­age of the to­tal body than an adult head," says Pol­lack. That's why it's im­por­tant to make sure an in­fant's head re­mains cov­ered in cold weath­er. (This al­so ex­plains those ubiq­ui­tous new­born caps at the hos­pi­tal.) But for an adult, the fig­ure is more like ten per cent. And keep in mind that heat es­capes from any ex­posed area (feet, arms, hands).

Eat­ing fish makes you smart.

The truth is: For kids up to age three or four, this is in­deed the case. Fish, es­pe­cial­ly oily ones, such as salmon, are packed with omega-3 fat­ty acids, in­clud­ing DHA (do­cosa­hexaenoic acid). "DHA is par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fi­cial in the first two years of life for brain de­vel­op­ment, cog­ni­tion, and vi­su­al acu­ity," says Bev­er­ly Hills pe­di­a­tri­cian, Scott W Co­hen, the au­thor of Eat, Sleep, Poop: A Com­mon Sense Guide to Your Ba­by's First Year. And a 2008 study in Clin­i­cal Pe­di­atrics showed an in­crease in vo­cab­u­lary and com­pre­hen­sion for four-year-olds who were giv­en dai­ly DHA sup­ple­ments. Omega-3 op­tions for the fish-pho­bic? Try av­o­ca­dos, wal­nuts, and canola oil.

Every child needs a dai­ly mul­ti­vi­t­a­min.

The truth is: Chil­dren who are sole­ly breast-fed dur­ing their first year should be giv­en a vi­t­a­min D sup­ple­ment. Af­ter that, a mul­ti­vi­t­a­min won't hurt any­one, but many ex­perts say that even if your child is in a picky phase, there's no need to sneak Fred, Wilma, and com­pa­ny in­to his ap­ple­sauce. "Even ex­treme­ly fussy eaters grow nor­mal­ly," Co­hen says. "Your kids will even­tu­al­ly get what they need, even if it seems as if they're sub­sist­ing on air and sun­light."

(Re­al­Sim­ple.com)