The number of occasions that I have lambasted my children for sneezing into their sleeves. "Don't do that - it's disgusting, you'll get germs on your clothes, and spread them around the house," I would say.

So it was with a shocked expression that I read how traditional advice - which I've been doling out for more than a decade - to cover the mouth and nose actually encourages the spread of disease because viruses are easily passed on through touch. Sneezing and coughing into the sleeve can, apparently, minimise the spread of germs.

It made me think about all the other, supposedly sound advice I've been dishing out to my family, including my husband.


Don't sit cross-legged while you are eating

I don't know how I came by this snippet of information, but I once heard, possibly from my nana, who was full of dodgy medical know-how, that this prevents the food being digested properly throughout the body. When I think about it, I don't think the digestive system has anything to do with the legs, so I'm guilty of spreading poppycock.


Don't sit on your ankles

This is another health tip that I picked up somewhere. I believe it was from a more informed source than my nana, and it basically warns that if you sit with bended knees, your bottom resting on your ankles, it puts pressure on your calves and thighs, leading to varicose veins. It must work - my daughters are 11 and nine, and not an unsightly vein in sight.


Don't draw on your hands

This is something that has been drummed into me since childhood. I remember teachers in the classroom at primary school telling us not to draw on our hands because not only did it look unsightly but the ink would work its way through our skin and into our blood. Their preaching must have hit home, because, 30 years on, I'm saying the same thing to my children.


Don't cross your eyes

"or you will stay like that." All children must recall having, at some stage, been told this. I still believe this, and if I ever do cross my eyes - as an adult, there haven't been many occasions when I've felt the need - I do so only for a split second in case it becomes permanent.


Don't eat standing up

This is something I have to ram home to my husband, not my children. My mother - another mine of dubious medical information - used to say you couldn't digest your food properly. Yet, thinking about it, your body is in a more natural state while standing, so in my mind, the jury is still out on this one.


I suppose it would not be too difficult to find the definitive answer to these things - a quick flick on the internet would do it. But, having believed them, and acted on them for so long, I don't want to discover that they're urban or - having been raised in the country - rural myths. I don't want to feel I've been wasting my time with a lot of nonsense. And if people like me aren't going to pass this queer and quirky, if completely untrue, advice down the generations, life will become very boring indeed.