Imagine eating a bag of Cheetos (or a bag of any favorite snack of yours), and you’re enjoying it to the very bottom of the bag. But then the last mouthwatering Cheeto lies between your thumb and index finger, and you finish it. You’re now feeling unsettled, almost empty inside. You really wanted another one or two bites, but you’re not hungry enough for another bag. At this point, people would revert to what is infamously known as “the best part of the snack”: Licking your fingers.
Stop!
Imagine what you touched prior to that bag of Cheetos. You could have touched a door knob that thousands of other people also touched. You may have just recently used the bathroom. There are endless possibilities that could have occurred. Licking your fingers is the unsanitary option to do. There are probably many things that you don’t realize you are doing that is extremely unsanitary. I researched a few common things that people don’t initially think of that is unsanitary to help everyone out.
An intriguing fact that most people are unaware of is what the dirtiest part in the human body is. People would assume it to be the genital, anus, or mouth. Billions of bacteria are located in these areas, which could make them to be great assumptions. Shockingly, this isn’t the case. The body part that can be classified as the dirtiest is the navel (or the belly button). Dead skin, old hairs, and sweat all accumulate within the belly button. It’s also rarely washed with a majority of humans, leaving it to be extremely dirty. For more information on belly buttons, click here. Make sure you always wash your belly button in the shower because it is commonly disregarded.
For the ladies out there who wear cosmetics, lipstick is a prime location for bacteria. Once applied onto the lips, bacteria remains on the lipstick, awaiting the next encounter. A tip to cleaning it is to dip it in alcohol and wipe it off with a clean tissue.
Something that can benefit everyone in society is the fact that cell phones are extremely dirty as well. Imagine where you put your cell phone. Constantly in your hands, on your face, on tables. This makes them extremely prone to bacteria and germs. Suggestions to keep them clean are to buy sanitizing wipes that are extremely affordable to clean them once in a while. A gross thing that could stress out the dirtiness is that a lot of people’s cell phones are dirtier than toilet seats. Imagine putting a toilet seat to your face to make a phone call. It is technically cleaner than most cell phones. Think about that the next time you use your phone!
There are a lot more sanitation issues that could be resolved by just taking more meticulous care of hygiene. For more places that are unsanitary that you might not realize, click here. Sanitation is extremely important because it helps correlates to an individual’s health. By staying clean, you avoid bad bacteria and germs. Always wash your hands before eating, take showers when necessary, and be aware of dirty things around you. It’s important to stay clean, so think about that more when you are doing things that could potentially be unsanitary!
Sources:
http://www.chickrx.com/articles/top-10-unsanitary-things-you-re-doing-and-don-t-realize
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/18/germiest-things-phones-toilet-seat_n_3948311.html
http://www.blog.greatzs.com/2012/06/dirtiest-part-of-body.html
https://www.governmentjobs.com/Content/Images/CategoryIcons/sanitation.png
I think that your article is very interesting and eye-opening. Do you have any suggestions on what we can do to prevent spreading germs besides using hand sanitizer? Studies show that hand sanitizing is good for you, but not if you use it frequently. According to Marilee Tolen, if you use hand sanitizer frequently, it “kills all of the bacteria on the skin… Some bacteria help fight the bad bacteria, viruses, and fungus that can make people sick. Not all bacteria are bad! By eliminating all of the bacteria – our skin is more “naked”… with lowered protection and lowered immunity.” Besides that there are many other reasons why hand sanitizer is not the best method of sanitizing such as it could be dangerous if it is ingested. Since Purell can not always be the ‘go-to’ sanitizing device, what should we use that could be safer?
http://www.homespalady.com/free-articles/hand_sanitizer.htm
Also, there’s another thing that I failed to mention in this blog post. Of course it is important to wash your hands with soap and water to stay sanitary, but you also want to do it because it is the prime way of preventing yourself from getting Ebola. The number one way of not getting Ebola is to wash your hands with soap and water! For more information on ways to prevent yourself from getting the Ebola virus, look here: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ebola-virus/basics/prevention/con-20031241
I appreciate how you promote the washing of hands in your post, and not just the usage of hand sanitizer. Many assume that hand sanitizer obliterates germs and automatically keeps one healthy, when in reality, hand sanitizers such as Purel tend to cause just the opposite. I have enclosed a link including potential harmful effects of using such products, hoping to stop the spread of germs and to promote a better sense of sanitation.
Link: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/15/how-antibacterial-soaps-may-endanger-health-and-environment/14070469/
As we all probably know, washing our hands is an important part of staying healthy and keeping up good hygiene. But in your post, you mentioned several other places where an excessive amount of germs can be found; lipstick, cellphones, etc. It almost seems that these germs are unavoidable. Washing your phone is not as common as washing your hands. Sometimes, it seems like the germs from lipstick and cell phones are inevitable. The germs on cellphones could probably be avoided by washing your hands before using, but as for lipstick I’m not sure if washing your lips would be a good solution? Staying sanitary is harder when germs are everywhere! http://www.prevention.com/health/healthy-living/8-germiest-public-places
This article was really eye opening, and very interesting. The point that you made that “lipstick is a prime location for bacteria” really caught my attention. It made me wonder what other old bacteria i’m putting on my face when I put my makeup on. This article talks about how bacteria gets into cosmetics, and how to prevent this and keep them sanitary. http://www.womenshealthmag.com/beauty/bacteria-in-makeup