All of my posts seem to be from my childhood, but when I was younger I was never allowed to go outside in the cold when my hair was wet. My parents told me that I was going to be sick if I do. One time in high school I didn’t bring an umbrella to school and it started to pour. I was convinced that I was going to get sick until one of my friends said that it’s myth that wet hair outside in the cold will get me sick.
I don’t know who to believe, my parents or my friends so I decided to do some research about it.
This article I found by Sarah Klein of the Huffington Post explores the question of getting sick by being outdoors with wet hair. She states the results as you can only contract a cold by being infected by the virus. There’s no way for you to get sick with wet hair. Klein mentions a quote from Dr. Pritish Tosh that you can only be sick if you have the virus. But according to Klein, she recommends that you don’t go out in extremely cold weather due to hypothermia etc.
According to an article by Claudia Hammond from BBC, she says there have been studies set in Germany and Argentina that have found higher rates of sickness in the winter. But then also brings up the point of a third confounding variable that affects the sickness in winter. According to Hammond, she said that when it’s raining or snowing many people are indoors more often and they contact the germs from being so close to other people. She also brings up a study lead by Ron Eccles from the Common Cold Centre in the United Kingdom, he was curious if the low temperatures and nasty weather conditions increase the chances of the virus. The experimental study conducted included the motions of participants to soak their feet in below freezing water for some time. While another group (independent variable) sat a bowl with nothing in while still having their socks and shoes on. The results were no effect from either of the groups initially but a few days later have discovered that the people who had their bare feet exposed were more likely to contract a cold than the other group.
The results are interesting, although the study done by Ron Eccles doesn’t really affect the wet hair of a person but their feet. Maybe their feet contracts sickness more for some reason.
Source: http://www.viralnova.com/frozen-hair/
Hi! I found this article very interesting, though it seems you only summarized one singular source. I would recommend finding more sources to support your claim that being outdoors while having wet hair will make you sick. I really enjoyed the anecdotal part of your blog, I thought it was crucial in enhancing the quality of your post.
This is a very interesting article. It shows that bad weather and the cold cause more to get sick inside due to close contact, and shows that when they are exposed to the conditions they are more likely to recieve a cold as well. This will definatly make me think more about how I take care of my body this winter.