ÑóẊîöʼn
15th October 2012, 17:58
Why are the British so bad at washing their hands? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19834975)
In a recent UK-wide study, 99% of people interviewed at motorway service stations toilets claimed they had washed their hands after going to the toilet. Electronic recording devices revealed only 32% of men and 64% of women actually did.
Even when faced with a serious health threat, many still don't bother. More newly published findings, this time from an international study by Harvard University, suggest only 53% of people washed their hands more frequently during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. It looked into how people changed their behaviour to reduce the spread of the H1N1 virus, and the British were the worst of the five countries studied.
Do you wash your hands properly? Children at Knights Enham Junior School, Andover, show you how
The British approach to hand washing is often "bizarre" and "peculiar", say hygiene experts. So what is our problem? A lot comes down to perception and how we see ourselves, also to a lack of understanding about the simplest hygiene.
"It's peculiar but many people in the UK don't think they carry any diseases," says Dr Lisa Ackerley, a consultant in environmental hygiene and co-founder of Hygiene Audit Systems. "They live in a country with modern facilities and think things are clean."
Why yes, how silly it is of us to think that most things are "clean enough", what with functioning water systems and no open sewers in the street.
Don't get me wrong, if one is a doctor, surgeon or chef then the habit of hand-washing is an important one for the purposes of public health, because that kind of work presents a particular risk for the transmission of pathogens. But the kind of routine being promoted in this article borders on the obsessive-compulsive for those of us who aren't expected to provide hygiene-relevant services to strangers.
I'm also pretty sure that a narrow-minded obsession with hygiene and washing, including the constant promotion of "anti-bacterial" products and formulations, can serve to compromise otherwise-healthy immune systems, especially those of children, which are still largely developing. I also think such an attitude ignores the fact that for a long time, people especially Europeans have lived in much worse conditions, yet it was the introduction of proper plumbing and improved hygiene standards among certain professions (not merely the general encouragement of handwashing) which has served to significantly decrease the incidence of disease.
As an example, it was the adoption of the practice of hand-washing among doctors which served to reduce mortality, as previously they would go on to deal with pregnant patients and such immediately after examining corpses, without washing their hands. But most people in their every day life don't spend their time in close proximity to corpses and/or pregnant or immune-weakened people. Most people aren't in the business of preparing and serving food to large numbers of strangers.
I find it particularly irritating that the BBC has chosen to tie this particular issue with that of swine flu, which A) wasn't that much of a big fucking deal to begin with and B) washing one's hands does no good if one has a colony of swine flu viruses making whooppee in one's nasal cavity (and then one sneezes). This kind of well-intentioned but misguided attempt at bullying us into "good behaviour" is especially galling for the sort of nannying interventionist mindset it betrays, which does more harm than good in the long run.
In a recent UK-wide study, 99% of people interviewed at motorway service stations toilets claimed they had washed their hands after going to the toilet. Electronic recording devices revealed only 32% of men and 64% of women actually did.
Even when faced with a serious health threat, many still don't bother. More newly published findings, this time from an international study by Harvard University, suggest only 53% of people washed their hands more frequently during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. It looked into how people changed their behaviour to reduce the spread of the H1N1 virus, and the British were the worst of the five countries studied.
Do you wash your hands properly? Children at Knights Enham Junior School, Andover, show you how
The British approach to hand washing is often "bizarre" and "peculiar", say hygiene experts. So what is our problem? A lot comes down to perception and how we see ourselves, also to a lack of understanding about the simplest hygiene.
"It's peculiar but many people in the UK don't think they carry any diseases," says Dr Lisa Ackerley, a consultant in environmental hygiene and co-founder of Hygiene Audit Systems. "They live in a country with modern facilities and think things are clean."
Why yes, how silly it is of us to think that most things are "clean enough", what with functioning water systems and no open sewers in the street.
Don't get me wrong, if one is a doctor, surgeon or chef then the habit of hand-washing is an important one for the purposes of public health, because that kind of work presents a particular risk for the transmission of pathogens. But the kind of routine being promoted in this article borders on the obsessive-compulsive for those of us who aren't expected to provide hygiene-relevant services to strangers.
I'm also pretty sure that a narrow-minded obsession with hygiene and washing, including the constant promotion of "anti-bacterial" products and formulations, can serve to compromise otherwise-healthy immune systems, especially those of children, which are still largely developing. I also think such an attitude ignores the fact that for a long time, people especially Europeans have lived in much worse conditions, yet it was the introduction of proper plumbing and improved hygiene standards among certain professions (not merely the general encouragement of handwashing) which has served to significantly decrease the incidence of disease.
As an example, it was the adoption of the practice of hand-washing among doctors which served to reduce mortality, as previously they would go on to deal with pregnant patients and such immediately after examining corpses, without washing their hands. But most people in their every day life don't spend their time in close proximity to corpses and/or pregnant or immune-weakened people. Most people aren't in the business of preparing and serving food to large numbers of strangers.
I find it particularly irritating that the BBC has chosen to tie this particular issue with that of swine flu, which A) wasn't that much of a big fucking deal to begin with and B) washing one's hands does no good if one has a colony of swine flu viruses making whooppee in one's nasal cavity (and then one sneezes). This kind of well-intentioned but misguided attempt at bullying us into "good behaviour" is especially galling for the sort of nannying interventionist mindset it betrays, which does more harm than good in the long run.