Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — CNN Chief Data Correspondent Harry Enten remembers showering back to when his mother dragged him into the shower as he kicked and screamed.. That was a long time ago, and now it’s those who shower once in a while. today.
Perhaps that’s why, he loathed when he heard, a few months ago, of people not washing or showering every day.
But what if I and the two-thirds of Americans who shower daily are wrong? And what if taking a daily shower isn’t the best way to maintain hygiene?
This was the discussion topic for the last episode of his podcast, Margins of Error, where he tackled the topics we experience every day.
“Let’s face it: we live in a society whose favorite pastime is judgment,” Enten said. “This is especially true when it comes to how people appear and present themselves.”
Judge others if they shower or not
Dr. James Hamblin sparked controversy a few years ago when he suddenly decided to stop showering. After trying it, he wrote a book called Hygiene: The New Science of Skin, and the Aesthetic of Doing Less.
“Hygiene practices are one of the last areas that allow people to openly vilify each other with rudeness or disgust,” Hamblin told Inton.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in many areas, but showering is still a judgment room, and we need to make sure of that.”
No one is immune from these judgments, and actress Mila Kunis and actor Ashton Kutcher made headlines last summer, when they admitted they took a relaxed approach to their baby’s bathing habits.
But opinion polls tell us how recent the phenomenon of washing or showering regularly is.
According to Gallup, in 1950, less than 30% of Americans showered or bathed at least once a day in the winter. Nevertheless, they seem to have lived well.
So, Inten decided to dig deeper into the issue, and asked why do we shower so much now, and do we need to? Where is the line between what is necessary for our hygiene… and what is mere marketing?
According to Catherine Aschenburg, author of Dirt on Cleanliness: An Unhealthy History, humans have a complex history with bathing going back to ancient Rome.
While the Romans loved to take a bath, the word became abusive for hundreds of years later.
When the death of lions appeared in the fourteenth century, Catherine said that physicians believed “you would be more likely to catch the plague if you took a warm bath, because they said that “warm baths will open your pores and disease will enter through”.
Perhaps most telling, however, is the rarity of bathing the French King Louis XIV. But he was given permission to change his linen shirts several times a day.
Is frequent cleaning harmful to us?
So what has changed? On the one hand, Enten explained, we dig deeper into germ theory. We have a lot of access to clean water sources, soap and showers, and on the other hand, marketing has gone to the extreme, you can’t turn around without seeing an ad trying to sell a product that keeps you clean, it’s a multibillion dollar industry.
And some medical professionals believe that excessive brushing makes us less healthy. And it turns out we might actually benefit from some other germs.
So Inten decided to explore in this week’s podcast episode how often you really need to wash, and why it’s important to understand the difference between personal hygiene and cleanliness. In addition, he will share his personal grooming experience.
