Basic Trope: The idea that if you eat, you have to wait a certain amount of time (usually 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, or three hours) before swimming or you'll get cramps and possibly drown.
- Straight: Little Alice eats a sandwich, then wants to go to the pool. Her father, Bob, tells her to wait an hour, or she'll get a cramp.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice eats a crumb, but Bob still tells her to wait an hour.
- Bob tells Alice to wait after drinking before swimming as well.
- Bob tells Alice to wait an hour, but she starts swimming after only waiting fifty-nine minutes and gets severe cramps.
- Bob forbids Alice to come into contact with any liquids whatsoever for an hour after eating.
- Downplayed:
- Bob only enforces this rule when Alice eats a large meal.
- Bob lets Alice wade, but not actually swim until the hour has passed.
- Bob only has Alice wait twenty minutes.
- Bob lets Alice swim while wearing a life jacket or other flotation device.
- Bob only tells Alice not to swim strenuously after a meal, where she'd be more likely to get cramps.
- Justified: Even though this belief is false, it's relatively common, and Bob doesn't want to take chances.
- Inverted:
- Bob tells Alice to wait an hour after swimming before she can eat.
- Bob tells Alice that she has to swim right after eating.
- Bob tells Alice not to swim while hungry.
- Subverted:
- Alice eats dinner and then wants a swim. Bob tells her not to, then when she asks why, he says because she didn't eat dessert.
- Bob tells Alice not to swim because of cramps as an allusion to her menstrual cycle, not eating.
- It turns out that Alice isn't supposed to swim right after eating because there are creatures in the water that would smell food in her stomach and eat her, instead of causing any cramps.
- Double Subverted:
- But he doesn't let her swim after dessert either, because she might get a cramp.
- That reason is not biologically sound either.
- Cut forward two weeks, when she asks to go swimming after dinner and he gives this line of reasoning with his no.
- Such "creatures in the water" don't exist, and Bob was only telling Alice this to Scare 'Em Straight.
- Parodied:
- Bob is a robot and Alice is his adopted human daughter. He calculates the time she has to wait right down to the millisecond.
- Alice and Bob have superpowers that make them impervious to injury and Bob still says this to Alice.
- Alice and Bob are on a boat and she's just eaten. He tells her not to swim even after she's knocked overboard without a flotation device.
- Alice and Bob live in an inland desert. He still tells her, "Don't swim immediately after eating," every day.
- Alice asks to swim in lava and Bob only says she should wait an hour after eating.
- Alice barely goes in the water and gets severe cramps anyway.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Bob tells Alice to wait an hour before swimming after she eats a sandwich, but Carol, his wife and Alice's mother, says that is a myth. Alice's cousin Dave claims that this has happened to his friend Edward, but he's known for telling tall tales. Then, more people with different opinions arrive and by the time a conclusion has been reached, it's been at least an hour anyway.
- Bob permits Alice to swim in salt water soon after she eats, but has her wait up to an hour before swimming in treated water (as in a swimming pool) and up to two hours before swimming in fresh water.
- Averted:
- No one is seen or mentioned to eat.
- No one is seen or mentioned to swim.
- Alice swims just after eating and she's fine.
- Enforced: To establish Bob as a Helicopter Parent, the writer revives that urban legend from their own childhood.
- Lampshaded: "Dad, that's not true. I mean, think about it: exactly an hour? All food? Specifically swimming?"
- Invoked: Freda tells Bob to have Alice wait an hour before swimming after eating in a list of parenting tips.
- Exploited:
- Carol needs to talk to Alice and uses the window after she's just eaten to do so.
- Alice is a competitive swimmer and Rachel puts her out of commission by arranging to have her fed just before it's her turn at the next meet.
- Defied: Alice does research and proves to Bob that the "swimming after eating is dangerous" thing is a myth.
- Discussed: "There have been no drownings or near-drownings based on eating and then swimming."
- Conversed: "Don't tell me 'don't swim after eating' still gets used!"
- Implied: Alice is seen waiting until she's allowed to swim, but it's never revealed why she has to wait.
- Deconstructed: Alice doesn't get to go to a pool party held just after she eats lunch, while all her friends do and have a ton of fun.
- Reconstructed: She uses that time to do something else she enjoys.
- Played for Laughs: Alice gets swimming cramps after eating and they're treated as Amusing Injuries and/or her reaction is full of Narm.
- Played for Drama: Alice drowns or nearly drowns from swimming cramps after eating.
You have to wait an hour after eating before swimming back to Don't Eat and Swim.
