Common wisdom holds that it is unsafe to swim after eating unless one waits for some prescribed period of time—usually between 30 minutes and two hours. The belief is that the pylorus, the gate between the stomach and intestines, will cramp up and render the swimmer unable to stay above water. Science doesn’t bear this out, though.
From the moment a bite of food is eaten until the time it leaves the stomach, about four hours elapse. During this period, both oxygen and energy are devoted to the act of digestion, taking them away from other uses such as fueling movement or removing the lactic acid that builds up in muscles during exercise. Nevertheless, the chances of suffering a stomach cramp while swimming are remote, regardless of when the swimmer last ate. Muscle cramps are another matter, but even these are seldom more than inconveniences.
Medical science long ago disputed the food-drowning link, with papers from the 1950s and beyond questioning whether there was any correlation. So what is the possible origin of this belief and why does it persist?
One source seems to be the original Boy Scouts of America manual (1911), which assured youngsters that a cramp would surely result from swimming before a meal had been digested:
Many boy swimmers make the mistake of going into the water too soon after eating. The stomach and digestive organs are busy preparing the food for the blood and body. Suddenly they are called upon to care for the work of the swimmer. The change is too quick for the organs, the process of digestion stops, congestion is apt to follow, and then paralyzing cramps.