ELUSIYAN

HYGIENE AND PREVENTION: A POINTER TO INCREASED LIFE SPAN

….ELUSIYAN TOLU’ FRANCIS

Hygiene is defined as a set of practices performed for the preservation of health. Hygiene is an old concept related to medicine, as well as to personal and professional care practices related to most aspects of living. Regular hygienic practices may be considered good habits by a society, while the neglect of hygiene can be considered disgusting, disrespectful or even threatening; for prevention they say is better than cure. Medical hygiene pertains to the hygiene practices related to the administration of medicine, and medical care, that prevents disease and the spreading of diseases.

The way to a beautifully maintained body is to give your body plenty of care and love. Hygiene is more than simply being clean. Practicing personal hygiene helps you to live a healthy lifestyle. Personal hygiene helps to prevent people from catching or spreading forms of disease or illness. From a simple perspective, hygiene means to be clean. Your health depends on your personal hygiene; Put differently, your life span depends on your personal hygiene as well.

Caring for your appearance and body smell is important to a person’s self-esteem. Body hygiene is the principle of maintaining cleanliness, as well as grooming of the external body. People have been aware of hygiene for thousands of years. People in history have spent hours in the bathroom taking care of their bodies and making themselves presentable to others.

Maintenance of personal hygiene is necessary for many reasons; and among these many reasons are personal reasons, social reasons, health reasons, or psychological reasons or simply as a way of life. Keeping a good standard of hygiene helps to prevent the development and spread of infections, illnesses and bad odors.

Most people are very conscious of personal hygiene because:

*We are taught of the importance of hygiene from an early age.

*We might have been ‘picked-up’ on it at school for a one-off or a persistent hygiene problem. This may even have been an issue mistakenly related to hygiene by others, such as head lice.

* It is considered a way of making ourselves more attractive to the opposite sex.

*It is off-putting to our friends and colleagues if we smell unpleasant etc.

*We are aware of health problems that can develop as a result of poor personal hygiene.

BODY IMAGE

Body Image is the perception that people have of their physical selves and the thoughts and feelings that result from that perception. These feelings could be positive, negative or both and are influenced by individual and environmental factors. Body image influences self-esteem, confidence and motivation. Those who already have low self-esteem and especially those with depression often neglect personal hygiene which perpetuates the problem of poor body image.

Many forms of modern media including magazines, fashion, TV, film and the internet present a certain body image as being ‘acceptable’ or ‘expected’. Young children and teenagers are especially influenced by this; physical appearance being the ultimate factor by which to judge and be judged.

To youngsters, teenagers and those who care for them, there are three things to remember:

*The first thing to accept is that you will probably never look like those perfect specimens in the media, but you can, and will look good to most people if you follow basic personal hygiene principles.

*Secondly, your actions and the way you behave are more important to most people than the way you look.

*Thirdly, good hygiene practices will help to keep you healthy, give you confidence and be pleasant for those around you.

SOCIAL REASONS AND HEALTH REASONS

Most people hate to be talked about, especially in a negative mannerism. By ensuring that our body is clean and well presented, we are more assured of projecting a positive body image that reflects our personalities. Children should be taught the importance of hygiene and how to achieve good hygiene very early to keep themselves and others healthy and to reduce the risk of being bullied at school.

Poor hygiene can lead to poor health. If you have cut yourself, the wound should be cleaned and dressed suitably, this can help reduce the risk of infection and pain. Conditions such as head lice etc. Should be treated immediately to prevent further infections and spread to others. Hand washing cannot be over emphasized as this simple action can prevent a plethora of illnesses and disorders developing. Many people forget to wash their hands after using the toilet or before handling foods; this can cause a great deal of illness.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES

By being well presented, clean and tidy, people can feel more confident, especially in social situations. Our chances of succeeding either in work or social settings, or even with the opposite sex can be altered by maintenance of good hygiene. Maintaining hygiene practices helps to reduce the risk of ill health, but equally affects how we and others perceive ourselves; And it can also influence our levels of confidence and self-esteem which can affect many aspects of our lives.

Furthermore, maintaining a high level of personal hygiene helps to increase not just the life span but also a person’s confidence and self-esteem. If your body is clean and taken care of externally, it automatically helps you to feel good internally as well. Personal hygiene depends on the culture in which a person lives. Culture in this context does not mean just the country or city a person lives in, it also means the group in which you spend most of your time with.

CONCLUSION

By way of conclusion, body hygiene is important for everyone; it is not that expensive to be clean and neat; yet to be clean, it is expected that your body should be washed at least once in a day. If possible besides washing, use a deodorant to stop body odor. At times, regular bathing in conjunction with anti-perspirants and deodorants do not help and are not useful in ridding yourself of body odor. The reason may be due to another medical condition. Upon inquiry from the medical practioners, body odor can also be a sign of liver dysfunction, diabetes, thyroid issues, or another medical condition.

Every day we are exposed to pollution. A person’s clothing becomes unpleasant and dirty at the end of the day as they are worn the entire day. Sweat begins to make a person’s body sticky, resulting in dust and dirt sticking to their body. At the end of the day, the person ends up carrying germs back to his own home.

So, cleanliness is an important issue, Poor hygiene is unhealthy and unacceptable for it can reduce life span. A person needs to maintain body hygiene not just for the sake of their own health. You can judge people by their personal hygiene; it gives you a picture of the person’s personality. Someone who adheres to body hygiene will be better equipped to fight any sort of disease or illness. Prevention they say is better than cure.