Too much cleansing has a profoundly negative impact on children’s immune systems . This is confirmed by the microbiologists Marie-Claire Arrieta and Brett Finlay, authors of the book “Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Our Children from an Oversanitized World”.
According to the authors, children are growing up in increasingly clean and hyper-hygienic environments and this is contributing to the increase in a series of chronic conditions ranging from allergies to obesity.
“Epidemiological evidence – explains Arrieta – shows that children growing up in an agricultural environment have less chance of developing asthma. Obviously you can’t just take your things and become a farmer, but what this suggests is that it’s better to live in a less clean environment than we are used to. The same goes for owning a pet, especially a dog. Let your baby play with dogs safely. ”
Arrieta added that cleaning anything that enters the baby’s mouth increases the chances of asthma .
“We are simply living too cleanly and this is not beneficial. The ‘ hygiene is vital to our health. We shouldn’t stop washing our hands but we should do it at a time when it’s useful to prevent the spread of disease – before eating and after using the bathroom. At any other time it is not necessary. So if your kid is out playing in the back yard, there’s no need to get rid of the dirt. There is no advantage in doing this. There must be a balance between preventing infections, which still pose a real threat in society, and promoting microbial exposure that is healthy.
