Daily bathing is considered a standard hygiene practice. Although it is widely believed that daily bathing is essential for hygiene and health, recent discussion among experts has raised questions about its daily necessity. According to BBC According to the report, experts have said that daily bathing does not provide any proven health benefits. They have rejected this practice as a socially accepted norm aimed at avoiding body odor.
while talking to BBC, environmentalist Donnchadh McCarthy said, “Why are we washing? Mostly because we’re afraid someone else will tell us we stink.” McCarthy, who now showers once a month, explained that her decision was inspired by her experience spending two weeks with the indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazon rainforest. Compelled to do his part for the environment, upon returning to his London home, he installed a rainwater harvesting, solar thermal hot water facility, and began closely monitoring his water usage. As a result, he gradually reduced his shower frequency over the years to now once a month.
They told BBC He now chooses to wash himself with the help of a clean cloth at the sink and also uses a cup of water to shave. He added, “If you go to an old building, in the bedrooms you’ll see these beautiful wooden tables with bowls sunk into them. People used to use water from the bowls, and put a cloth over the face and body. … Obviously, having running water is a huge positive but that means you use a lot of it.” “I think a lot of the rain is demonstrative,” he said.
Another professor in the department of built environment at Aalborg University in Denmark said that we do not bathe for health reasons, but because it is a social norm. “If you go back 100 years, we didn’t bathe every day because bathing was not a common thing. We do not bathe because of health. We bathe because it’s a normal thing,” quoted Professor Kristen Gramm-Hansen. New York Post.
Sally Bloomfield, honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said people bathe every day because it is considered “socially acceptable”. NYP.
According to the report, experts recommend that people with dry skin or suffering from conditions like eczema should bathe for less time and less frequently. This is because frequent bathing can damage the microbiome of their skin.
while talking to the new York Times In a 2023 report, Seattle dermatologist Joyce Park explained that the ideal frequency of bathing depends on a person’s skin and hair type and how much a person sweats or dirties.
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Published: April 26, 2024, 11:56 am IST
