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Loading...That is Dirty! Put It in Your Mouth: Healthy Immune Systems Through Dirt
- a Care2 favorite by Eric Steinman
- 202 comments
A few years ago, when my child was still an infant, I found myself in one of those awkward situations with a host of new mothers that verbally and enthusiastically supported one another, while quietly judging each other’s parenting choices…always judging. I can’t remember specifics, but I remember I was about to feed my child a snack and found myself scanning the immediate environment for a bathroom, or at least some running water to wash my child’s hands. Upon witnessing my vigilance, one mother said something to the effect of, “Oh you are so good, aren’t you?” and she followed this up with a self-dismissal to the tune of, “I just let my kids eat all kinds of dirt and hope for the best.”
Over the past several decades, parents have bent over backwards to keep their children clean and free of germs of all kinds. This endeavor has ranged from the sensible (frequent washing of hands) to the dubious (anti-bacterial everything in every form imaginable) and fueled an industry eager to feed your fears about everything from your garden-variety icky germs to virulent strains of flu viruses. The marketing of products to keep your family safe and germ free have fueled this fleeting fantasy of a hypersanitized childhood, free of the plagues and pathogens that had befallen previous generations. It is a noble, but futile fight.
In recent years we’ve learned that these germ-free adolescents may be suffering from too much of a good thing. Too much cleanliness can be a bad thing for a young child’s developing immune system, according to an article on Slate.com by Amanda Schaffer. The article goes on (backed by multiple recent scientific findings) to assert that early exposures to germs help teach a child’s immune system to regulate itself, and provide much needed stimulation and training to insure future health and a bolstered immunity.
Read more: Babies, Children, Family, General Health, Health, Parenting at the Crossroads, immunity
Eric Steinman
Eric Steinman is a freelance writer based in Rhinebeck, NY. He regularly writes about food, music, art, architecture, and culture and is a regular contributor to Bon Appétit among other publications.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
people are talking
nice one!
I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that most of the plants I’m growing this year are attrac…
Great Idea,plus I love the look.
Excellent advice that I am going to follow!
What a delightful story! Thanks for sharing.
202 comments
+ add your owndirt is good for kids :)
Dawn C., you probably need to do a bit of homework on what causes "pink eye" and not clean school desks is probably a very unlikely source. I don't recall ever, EVER having my desks cleaned in school! We all sat at the same desk all day long until high school, and never saw a desk "cleaned" or disinfected in-between classes, so desks were shared by at least six different kids during the day. Pink eye is also either bacterial or a virus, and here's a site to give you more information..................there are dozens, BTW..........
http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/eye/conjunctivitis.html
Our children contracted pink eye from the not well enough cleaned desks in the public school in second grade.
Thank you for article.
Thank you for article.
Growing up, my friends and I were from very poor families and we had few toys. We invented our own and often played in stuff that was disgusting and dirty. We were rarely sick. We ate dirt and food we found discarded, rotting fruit and worse!
My son used to come home from school and go directly to the barn to muck horse stalls, then would come in the house and fix himself a PNB&J sandwich. He forgot to wash his hands and there again, was never sick!
We over sterilize everything. We'e obscessed about germs and sanitize everything we touch. No wonder we have no immunity to normal "bugs" anymore. First sign of a cold, we stuff ourselves with anti-biotics (colds are a virus in the first place), and then wonder why we can't recover from serious things when taking antibiotics!
It's true. I read about this in the book Genome. Apparently, our immune syste was mad to fight off tape worm, TB and so on. Now, our immune system has gotten "bored" and over-react to things such as pollen. Studies show kids who are less exposed to dirt have higher rates of astma, allergies and lower immune responses compared to the kids who played in dirt, I am sure other factors are at play, but I strongly think out body must fight off minor microbes regularly to be prepared for a a major illness.
It does amaze me that in spite of the pollution, world wide poverty, and all the poor living conditions that involves, the worlds population keeps growing. And it doesn't seem to be the most well fed and sanitized people growing it.
sva djeca to rade,samo gledajiu sta ce pokupiti sa zemlje i strpati u usta.Jedino moguće riješenje je otimati im to što nađu.
Might be a few more things around today than before.
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