If you open my pantry, you’ll find no fewer than 10 different cleaning products. There are scrubs to disinfect the floors and toilet, non-toxic sprays for the counters and high-chair, gentle detergents for clothes, sanitizing wipes and gels for our hands.
My reasoning: With a toddler who crawls around on the floor and gets filthy in the playground every day, I need all the help I can get in the cleaning department.
But a new book, “Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Your Child from an Oversanitized World,” claims that parents like me may be making our children’s lives too clean — and that this can actually make them less healthy.
As soon as this book hit my desk, I contacted the authors — after all, what mom doesn’t want to clean less often? — to talk about their findings. Below is my interview with Brett Finlay, a professor of microbiology at the University of British Columbia, and Marie-Claire Arrieta, a postdoctoral scientist. The interview has been edited for clarity.
Marketwatch: The title of your book is “Let Them Eat Dirt.” What does it mean and why is eating dirt important for kids?
Finlay and Arrieta: In our quest to clean up our world and get rid of infectious diseases, we now realize we have become too clean. We need to rethink our quest for cleanliness. We don’t directly advocate “eating dirt” but we realize kids, especially early in life, depend on abundant microbial exposure that is needed to develop normally. Without this exposure, they are at much increased risk for the “Western” diseases such as allergies, asthma, IBD, obesity, diabetes, etc. later in life.
Marketwatch: You talk about how children raised on farms have certain advantages over children raised in cities. Talk about these advantages — and what city parents can do to help our kids get those perks.
Finlay and Arrieta: Kids raised on farms are exposed to multitudes of microbes. These exposures are actually good for decreasing the incidence of asthma and allergies, among other diseases. Letting a kid play in the dirt is not necessarily bad — this is how human children evolved, and living in an extremely clean environment is not how we have evolved as a species.
MarketWatch: Why do you think there has been a jump in the number of children with food allergies — and what can parents do to prevent allergies?
Finlay and Arrieta: There are a lot of hypotheses about this, but the leading one is that children are “microbially deprived” so their immune system doesn’t develop normally, and is shifted to allergies. It is also thought that the Western diet increases gut permeability, exposing children more to allergens.
Marketwatch: What’s your advice on hand washing?
Finlay and Arrieta: Hand washing is the best hygienic practice that we can follow to prevent infectious diseases. It has been shown time and again that communities with better hand washing practices stay healthier, and no one should stop washing their hands to promote more exposure to microbes. With that said, children do not need to wash their hands all day long. Hand washing should occur before eating, after using the toilet, after being in contact with someone sick, or if the child is sick, after touching garbage or food that is suspected to be decomposing, after touching animal waste, or after being in places frequented by many people (subways, malls, etc.). Children do not need to wash their hands after playing outside (unless they are about to eat), immediately after they walk into the house, or after playing with other children (unless they are sick with an infection). Children should be outside and should be allowed to be barefoot and to get dirty, and hand washing does not necessarily need to immediately follow these activities. This list is not exhaustive, but it is aimed to give an idea of the type of exposures associated with risk of infection from the ones that are not, which should guide hand-washing principles.
The type of soap used for this depends on personal preference but we strongly discourage the use of antibacterial soap. A U.S. FDA committee found that using antibacterial soaps provides no benefits over regular soap and water. Except for hospitals or places where additional medical hygiene is necessary, antibacterial soap doesn’t have a place in everyday use, and the same goes for antibacterial gel sanitizers. Plain old soap and water is enough and an alternative sanitizer (like a gel sanitizer) should only be used if there isn’t a potable source of running water and soap.
Marketwatch: How often should parents clean kids’ toys?
Finlay and Arrieta: [Don’t] do it until they visibly look dirty or after a sick child has played with them. As for what to use, soap and water is more than enough. Harsh chemicals such as the chlorine in bleach or disinfectants are not necessary for this type of cleaning.
Marketwatch: Is the sandbox as dirty as many parents think it is? Should we let our kids play in it?
Finlay and Arrieta: [Sandboxes have] a higher concentration of microbes than other playground features ... |
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