Importance of Maintaining Personal Body Hygiene

Author: Ian C. Langtree - View Credentials
Published: 8 May 2015 - Updated: 23 Aug 2024
Publication Type: Informative

Table of Contents:
Synopsis - Overview - Related Content

Synopsis

Information and tips on the importance of good body hygiene, the principle of maintaining cleanliness, as well as grooming of the external body.

Overview

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.

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. Medical hygiene pertains to the hygiene practices related to the administration of medicine, and medical care, that prevents or minimizes disease and the spreading of disease.

Self Esteem

Caring for your appearance and body smells 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 bath taking care of their bodies and making themselves presentable to others.

Maintaining a high level of personal hygiene helps to increase 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 too. Personal hygiene depends upon 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.

Body hygiene is important for everyone; it does not cost much to be clean, yet to be clean it is expected that your body should be washed at least once each day. If possible; besides washing, use a deodorant to stop body odor.

At times, regular bathing in conjunction with anti-antiperspirants and deodorants do not help and are not useful in ridding yourself of body odor. The reason may be due to another medical condition. Even the intake of onions and garlic give a person a bad body odor. Body odor might also be a sign of liver dysfunction, diabetes, thyroid issues, or another medical condition.

A person needs to maintain body hygiene not just for the sake of their own health. You may judge a person 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. Every day a person is exposed to:

• Dust
• Smoke
• Pollution
• Bacteria
• Road grime
• The workplace
• Heavy traffic fuels

Just to name a few things. 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 their own home. The bacteria on a person's skin makes their body stale and their body begins to give out a bad odor. The person's hair starts to get dirty as well.

Importance

For the majority of people, cleanliness is an important issue; poor hygiene is unhealthy and unacceptable. Good hygiene includes regularly and thorough washing of the person's body, hair, hands, as well as brushing and flossing teeth, caring for gums and keeping the feet clean. A buildup of bacteria can harm a person's health, although you can keep your body clean by caring for your hair, skin, eyes, nails and so forth. What follows are suggestions for pursuing personal hygiene.

• Oral Cleanliness: Keep your teeth and gums clean. Brush at least twice a day to remove bad odor and food particles from your mouth. Floss at least once each day.
  Loofah: People who live in warm areas sweat a lot and need to take care of the dirt and grime on their bodies. Use a gentle loofah to get rid of the dead cells on your body.
• Use Clean Bed Linen: Be sure to change your bed linen each week. It is not necessary that your linen should be costly, but your sheets and pillows should be kept clean. Air your bedding out regularly; once per week.
• Wash Your Hands: Wash your hands before and after you eat, before or after touching a wound, using the bathroom, after sneezing or coughing, after touching garbage, and after touching or playing with pets or any animal.
  Essential Oils: The main purpose of having a bath and cleaning your body is to get it smelling good and make it clean. While having a shower, use a few drops of essential oils - it will make you smell fresh for a longer period of time.
• Antiperspirants and Deodorants: Deodorants work to hide a person's body odor while antiperspirants work to dry up or control perspiration. Several products now contain both a deodorant and an antiperspirant. Different women and men use different products to suit them and in accordance with their tastes.
• Change Your Clothing Regularly: Do not re-wear your clothes without washing them. It is harmful for people who perspire profusely. Make sure you wash your clothing in a good detergent with lukewarm water. Dry your clothing, perhaps in the sun; it gets rid of the remaining bacteria. Do not share underwear with anyone.
• Scented Soaps, Colognes and Perfumes: A number of people use some kind of scented soap, cologne, or perfume. At first, these were used in order to mask or cover up body odor; now many people use them as a way of showing their individuality. Not everyone uses these products and some people prefer a more natural smell. It is not bad to use these products, yet you should definitely be careful to use them on sensitive skin because it may cause irritation - either to you, or to another person.

Menstrual Hygiene

All human rights stem from the fundamental right to human dignity.

When women and girls are forced into seclusion, have to use soiled and damp materials, or fear leaking or smelling because of inadequate menstrual hygiene - dignity is hard to maintain.

A lack of adequate menstrual hygiene denies women and girls their right to health, education, as well as the right to work in favorable conditions.

A number of girls drop out of school when they begin menstruating due to reasons at times related to inadequate water, hygiene and sanitation at school, or harsh menstrual taboos. It signifies discrimination, hampers gender equality, as well as infringing on their right to education.

While the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners demand that men be able to shave, there is currently no provision to make sure that women have the ability to manage their menstruation adequately.

Author Credentials: Ian C. Langtree is a writer, editor, and the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Disabled World, which he established in 2004 as one of the longest-running independent resources for disability news and information. Over more than two decades, he has written and edited thousands of articles on disability rights, health, accessibility, and assistive technology. Drawing on a global perspective shaped by extensive travel and lived experience, Ian is a committed advocate of the Social Model of Disability, the framework developed by disabled activists in the 1970s that focuses on removing societal barriers rather than on individual impairments. His writing is grounded in that framework and in a lasting commitment to disability rights, accessibility, and social inclusion. To learn more about Ian's background, expertise, and accomplishments, visit his full biography.