Talk:Hygiene/Archive 1

Ventilation
What are the good hygiene practices regarding ventilation, especially airing of bedroom and beddings after sleeping? This is an often neglected aspect of hygiene, especially during cold weather when there are resistance to open the window. Wonder how important this is. -- Vsion 4 July 2005 11:23 (UTC)


 * I honestly don't think it's very important. Getting some exercise etc instead would probably be far better for health, this is really more an aesthetic sort of thing Richard001 04:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Antibacterial agents and antibiotics (their difference)
regarding the antibacterial issue -- i don't know but is germ resistance really an issue here like it is with antibiotics? I thought antibacterial agents differ from antibiotics in that they are used externally and are physically destructive to microogranisms so they can not evolve a resitance to them... whereas antibiotics, being used internally, are more mild and target specific features unique to bacteria. Triptych

I think it is. The interesting finding that children from excessively clean homes were more susceptible to asthma - the source of which I haven't yet traced - The British Medical Journal of 24 October 1998 - indicates that it is not just antibiotic resistance that is an issue here. Stan 21:37, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am not an expert but i have read various papers, websites, and books. I noticed that less people in rural areas have asthma, maybe it is the dirt? yes there is a lot of germs etc. in there but there must be something bad about sterilizing everything. 201.226.132.65 01:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)Karl

The hygiene article needs a bit of beefing up as it is a very wide subject and I don't think adequately covered here. Stan 21:37, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm also interested in children's seemingly natural aversion to allowing their mouths to come into contact with articles that have been in contact with other people's mouths. Is this universal, i.e. non-learnt, and therefore can be considered instinctive, or it is something learnt? From my own experience it seems such a ubiquitous phenomenon that I wonder whether it isn't instinctive, borne of an evolutionary advantage to children who do not allow themselves to risk infection from others. Stan 19:56, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Phrases in the article that need clarification
Here we can put things that could need clarification, or explanation, or things that confuse us.

"Hygiene is the primary attraction facet"
Can someone clarify what this means? --Media anthro 22:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It has been already removed. Logictheo (talk) 12:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Bias towards men who have not removed their foreskin
It actually seems that the phrase "For uncircumcised men, cleaning daily under the foreskin with soap and water." has been removed. Uhm, has anyone noticed? Personally I would prefer if it just said : "for men, cleaning daily thoughrouly under the foreskin with water, optionally with soap.". That would of course be missing, about what women should do, which I have no clue about. Logictheo (talk) 12:20, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This should be a what-is article, not a how-to article, so I think "washing the body" suffices. As it is, the article represents grooming more than hygienic (disease-preventing) practices. You can always create a separate article about washing the genitalia, if you feel the information needs to be on WP. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Restoring 22 February 2008 version due to accidental truncation
I reverted a vandal's edit using Twinkle, and the page seems to have been truncated. I didn't notice until someone added back some of the missing material. Having looked at the history, I'm reverting back to a version from 22 February 2008 (that predated the recent rash of vandalism) to restore the rest of the missing material. Just letting you know why I'm doing this, in case I trample anyone's legitimate edit in the process. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Domestic hygiene
Can the entry(ies) about "domestic hygiene" be altered to "environmental hygiene (ie looking after the hygiene of locations, ...) Domestic is too narrow (only at home) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.70.250 (talk) 14:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, domestic hygiene may be too narrow so I am in the process of updating the hygiene entry to create a new section called "home and everyday hygiene", using the definition of home hygiene as the hygiene practices that prevent or minimize disease and the spreading of disease in home (domestic) and in everyday life settings such as social settings, public transport, the work place, public places, etc. I have already started updating the concept section. Florenceboot (talk) 13:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Article seems "weird"
This article is rather weird, and I'm going to rework it to correspond closer to the dictionary (and common) definition: practices intended and generally thought to prevent illness through cleanliness. In particular, I'll remove:

About this mental hygiene there is going to be a report about it tomorrow in my school i'll try to keep you posted. (mental activity i think) 201.226.132.65 01:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)Karl
 * healthy diet &mdash; not generally considered part of hygiene, though hygiene in food preparation is obviously part of a healthy diet
 * mental health &mdash; no idea what that's doing here, but I see no relation. Mental health folks treating sleep disorders use the term sleep hygeine for avoiding certain activities that make sleep problems/disease symptoms worse. Eg TV, excersise, bright lights just before bed.


 * "daily" washing of hair and body &mdash; as far as I know, medical opinion is quite split on the ideal frequency for doing that.
 * avoidance of "indirect" contact with "unhygienic people" &mdash; again, no idea about that.

Please actually provide significant sources before reinstating those statements. It might be necessary to split this article into one dealing with practices actually shown to prevent illness, and those that are of a more cultural nature.

RandomP 17:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Keeping your body clean is an important part of keeping you healthy and helping you to feel good about yourself. Caring about the way you look is important to your self esteem (what you think about yourself). This topic gives you some ideas on looking your best. By the way, you don't need to wear the latest designer clothing to look good. There are other things you can do which are much more important for your "image". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.207.16.56 (talk) 13:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

home and everyday life hygiene
we have inserted a new section into the "hygiene" entry on home and every day life hygiene. We would welcome any comments or suggestions —Preceding unsigned comment added by Florenceboot (talk • contribs) 13:45, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Medieval Hygiene
This article has some inaccurate information concerning medieval hygiene, and its assertion that Europeans did not bathe regularly until the 17th century is wrong -- the availability of perfume and a fear that water carried disease into the flesh through the skin actually led to a decrease in water-bathing. William Dalrymple is not a medieval European historian and I don't understand why his work is being cited here in reference to the Middle Ages. Bathing was a common practice in the Middle Ages and all other articles on Wikipedia that I can find relating to this topic attest to this, making this article inconsistent. I will gather some sources over the next couple weeks and correct this. JamesMcCloud129 21:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Changes have been made. JamesMcCloud129 23:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Grait Britain should not be confused with Europe. We in Serbia did bath at the time. 147.91.12.157 (talk) 13:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I got a second comment on the section, it says they did not empty chamber pots, but i heard on a show on the discovery channel (i figure they usualy know what their talking about) that they did, why would the romans, they had a sewer system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tjayh913 (talk • contribs) 05:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

History of Hygiene
I have heard that in ancient Rome there were two cults. One was let by a man named Hygiene and the other led by a man called Hippocrates. The followers of Hygiene preached to prevent illness. The followers of Hippocrates preached to treat illness. Any information about the facts on this matter would be helpful.

142.167.108.245 23:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC) Should there be metnion of Slavic/Germanic and otherwise North and Eastern European Bathing techniques? There is mention of western bathing habits that included Perfume bathing but this was not true in North and East Europe, there was a strong tradtion of Sauna and bathouse in North and East Europe that started from Pagan Times. German scientists were reported to say that the Russian Banya held many benefits and cured many diseases. I am wondering if people have source that explains information I posted :D

There also is missing mention of the ancient Tanakh purity laws (Leviticus Chapters 11 to 16 from the Torah). 66.11.179.30 (talk) 05:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Use of word, "Hygiene" in a politically harmful manner: Perhaps NEEDED in this Article.
Hello folks,

I'm that one who does lots of Pro-Bono Volunteer Services to others, but there's "not much money" in it. That said, I'm not in a very good shape to "write the updates to the Article", so it can be "picked apart by others".

The humorous way to say this: "I'm up to my Alligators in Eyeballs, and some of those Alligators are hungry". :-)

The topic I wish to promote "polite discussion" in the talk page is a 2 word phrase, used in World War 2, that has pushed WAY too many buttons, causing "immense Flame Wars" on some "comment pages", about Israili and German relationships (and, even though they were not "directly involved", I believe [but may be "horribly wrong about"], a small, vocal minority of Islamic members of various countries "jump in", in both English and Arabic, muddying the waters. (If anybody feels I'm off base here, please help me out. The reason I broke in, was I was looking for "all the way the word Hygiene is used, so I could see Pluses and Minuses, in the World. I suspect that "Racial Hygiene" is such a "can of worms", that including it is ...

[To Be Continued. I saw something on Google right now: I figured I'd Google "racial hygiene" to see if anybody attempted this. Glory be, there's an article on Wikipedia with those two words! I'm now going to "closely examine both articles", to see if my "eyesight is failing me", or if one of those Alligators took a nibble out of one of my eyeballs. The least that could be done is to create a "disambiguation page", that addresses the confusion. I promise to return to this article a little later, after my "scrutiny".

Added: Link to corresponding talk page in "Racial Hygiene":. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sea7kenp (talk • contribs) 04:23, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you and best regards,

Kenneth Parker, Seattle, WA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sea7kenp (talk • contribs) 03:57, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

"Golden showers"?
Can somebody explain to me how to find what was previously in the article at this point and go back to correct it? Human fella (talk) 08:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Add section on hygiene promotion or create new article?
Should we add a section on hygiene promotion or create a new article on that topic? There is this content which is from Draft:Hygiene promotion (there was this statement "Portions of this draft are copyright infringement, and portions have been rewritten. This is still not satisfactory." - I don't know enough about this topic to comment). EMsmile (talk) 21:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Hygiene promotion
Hygiene promotion is a planned approach of enabling people to act and change their behaviour in an order to reduce and/or prevent incidences of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) related diseases. It usually involves a participatory approach of engaging people to take responsibility of WASH services and infrastructure including its operation and maintenance. The three key elements of promoting hygiene are; mutual sharing of information and knowledge, the mobilisation of affected communities and the provision of essential material and facilities.

In many settings, provision of sanitation facilities alone does not guarantee good health of the population. Studies have suggested that the impact of hygiene practices have as great an impact on sanitation related diseases as the actual provision of sanitation facilities. Hygiene promotion is therefore an important part of sanitation and is usually key in maintaining good health.

Tools for hygiene promotion
A number of communication tools are used in promoting hygiene practices. These include;
 * Community Drama and plays


 * Focus group discussions and talks
 * Home visits
 * Puppet shows, stories and songs
 * Mass Media Campaigns: This basically is spreading hygiene messages to a large group of people mainly through radio and television. Radio and television broadcasts may well be the most effective method of reaching a large number of people.
 * Posters

Methods of hygiene promotion
Depending on the characteristics of the target population and available resources, different hygiene promotion methods are used.

Community-led total sanitation (CLTS)
The CLTS is approach originates form Kamal Kar's evaluation of a traditional water and sanitation program by WaterAid in Bangladesh in 2000. This approach uses participatory methods which enables communities to analyze their sanitation conditions and collectively work towards eradicating open defecation and its impacts on public health.

Participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST)
PHAST is a hygiene promotion approach that uses a series of methods and materials to stimulate community participation. This method requires trained extension workers and graphic material depicting the characteristics of the area where hygiene is to be promoted.

Hygiene education
Hygiene education involves teaching and helping individuals, families and the community to understand the links between poor hygiene behaviours and diseases and encouraging people to improve their behaviours. This hygiene promotion method requires a lot of material like posters, banners and books. School hygiene education is a form of hygiene education that approaches hygiene promotion based on the premise of children's right to basic facilities in the school setting.

Social marketing of sanitation
Social marketing makes use of marketing tools and techniques that promote hygienic practices by improving supply and demand of sanitation facilities. It communicates benefits like convenience, social status and privacy, gained from improved sanitation. EMsmile (talk) 21:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Oral hygeine or dental hygeine?
I wonder whether the section subtitled "Oral hygeine" should be subtitled "Dental hygeine"? Vorbee (talk) 19:46, 9 August 2018 (UTC) OK since nobody appears to have responded to this, I am happy to leave it as "Oral hygeine". Vorbee (talk) 17:08, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Dust bad for Asthma
A couple of things: as a sufferer of asthma, I have always found the frequency of attacks to be related to the amount of dust or plant material in the air. As far as I was aware the condition itself is not directly affected by ambient bacteria, but of course if those bacteria lead to respiratory infection it's a different story. Is there more info somewhere?

More importantly, the "Cultural/commercial aspects" section (and attendant heading) strike me as POV. Before I flex my "be bold" fingertips here, I'd like to know what other people think? Am I just reading too much into it? It seems like a thinly-veiled prop for the "back to nature" group. The problem is compounded by the brevity of the current article. Comments? Jeeves 05:59, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Personal hygiene
Is it really necessary to wash daily, especially the hair? Most of the items on that list seem pretty unsubstantiated. Talk:Hygiene From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

regarding the antibacterial issue -- i don't know but is germ resistance really an issue here like it is with antibiotics? I thought antibacterial agents differ from antibiotics in that they are used externally and are physically destructive to microogranisms so they can not evolve a resitance to them... whereas antibiotics, being used internally, are more mild and target specific features unique to bacteria. Triptych

I think it is. The interesting finding that children from excessively clean homes were more susceptible to asthma - the source of which I haven't yet traced - The British Medical Journal of 24 October 1998 - indicates that it is not just antibiotic resistance that is an issue here. Stan 21:37, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The hygiene article needs a bit of beefing up as it is a very wide subject and I don't think adequately covered here. Stan 21:37, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm also interested in children's seemingly natural aversion to allowing their mouths to come into contact with articles that have been in contact with other people's mouths. Is this universal, i.e. non-learnt, and therefore can be considered instinctive, or it is something learnt? From my own experience it seems such a ubiquitous phenomenon that I wonder whether it isn't instinctive, borne of an evolutionary advantage to children who do not allow themselves to risk infection from others. Stan 19:56, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A couple of things: as a sufferer of asthma, I have always found the frequency of attacks to be related to the amount of dust or plant material in the air. As far as I was aware the condition itself is not directly affected by ambient bacteria, but of course if those bacteria lead to respiratory infection it's a different story. Is there more info somewhere?

More importantly, the "Cultural/commercial aspects" section (and attendant heading) strike me as POV. Before I flex my "be bold" fingertips here, I'd like to know what other people think? Am I just reading too much into it? It seems like a thinly-veiled prop for the "back to nature" group. The problem is compounded by the brevity of the current article. Comments? Jeeves 05:59, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

removed 'die another day'
I removed 'die another day' from the end of page, since it seems totally unnecessary. Guess, the last editor was a big Bond fan :)

Random silliness
Does nobody else laugh when they first see the page? Title: Hygiene. Notice: This page is in need of an expert on the subject. I'm sorry, has the article not had a shower recently or something? :P

Offer to help
I am not an expert on hygiene, but offered to put together a course on this subject at a youth shelther and I am learning a lot...(We will call the course, `Health and well being`, but the purpose is to discuss facets of hygiene. I`ve been compiling information and am interested in contributing the facts (not the activities or best practices - which I don`t think should be in the wiki page defining the term) I compile for the course to this page...

Will check back later.

I would like to add this for personal hygiene:

Personal hygiene
I re-ordered the sections and have added a section for personal hygiene that links to `personal grooming`with the idea that the distinction between the two is that hygiene is for health wheras personal grooming is for appearance.

Personal hygiene pertains to hygiene practices performed by an individual to care for one’s bodily and spiritual health and well being. Motivations for personal hygiene practice include reduction of personal illness, healing from personal illness, optimal health and sense of well being, social acceptance and prevention of spread of illness to others.

Personal hygiene practices include: seeing a doctor, seeing a dentist, washing (bathing or showering) the body, regular hand washing, brushing teeth, basic manicure and pedicure and feminine hygiene, healthy eating, exercise and spiritual development. Personal grooming extends personal hygiene as it pertains to the maintenance of a good personal and public appearance which need not necessarily be hygienic.

Please send me feedback if you have comments.

Removed or moved some content that was excessively detailed
I have removed or moved some content today that was copied last year in December to here from a sub-article. It was about Hygiene in Christianity. I felt that the content was excessively detailed and made this article overly Euro-centric. Also I don't think it's elegant to have the same paragraphs in two articles (if needed, then an excerpt would have been better). Other content that had been copied across last year (copied, not moved) was from the history section of soap. Again, I didn't think we needed all that detail here. After all, this is an overview article which should be using summary style and then connect with relevant sub-articles. The section on laundry hygiene also had too much detail about laundry detergent and parts of it where WP:HOWTO. Do check if you agree with my changes and let me know if there are any issues. EMsmile (talk) 07:31, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Usage of excerpts
I like the usage of excerpts. I have just replaced the handwashing section with an excerpt for hand washing. Are there other sub-topics that should also be dealt with by using excerpts? EMsmile (talk) 02:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The word "germ"
I would remove all instances of the word "germ" as used to refer to microorganisms from this article. It's inaccurate layperson terminology and rarely seen outside of advertising.
 * I agree and have made the change. I have also changed it at handwashing.EMsmile (talk) 04:29, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Recently added content to the history section about bathing in China
Hi, thanks for adding that new content to the history section about bathing in China. Looks interesting. I am just curious what prompted you to add this, and if this is unique content or if similar content is in another Wikipedia article? And do you have further ideas for improvement for this Wikipedia article? EMsmile (talk) 04:17, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, . History youtuber Metatron's video regarding history of hygiene (classical and medieval period) triggered my interest to do some research, so I added this section. Further improvement of this section would include Misogi and Japanese hygiene practice during the medieval period. -Loned (talk) 22:50, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That's great! And thanks for the tip, I just subscribed to Metatron as well now. EMsmile (talk) 14:01, 30 July 2021 (UTC)