Worst 6 Effects Of Poor Hygiene Environment On Your Health

Maintaining proper hygiene plays an important role in helping you prevent diseases. Proper hygiene can help reduce the risks of many bacterial and viral infections. To avoid poor hygiene, you must develop basic hygiene habits. That could include washing your body and hair regularly to brushing at least twice a day.

We can divide hygiene maintenance into two levels that are personal hygiene and environmental or surrounding hygiene. Click here to read more about hygiene and how to maintain it.

Read on for details about the ill effects of poor hygiene.

Effects Of Poor Hygiene On Your Health

#1. Bad Body Odour

Bad body odour is one of the most common problems that arise if you have poor hygiene habits. Bad body odour will not only result in an embarrassing situation for you and those around you. You could also develop allergies, face constant itching, and might face a social boycott because of your foul body odour.

The unwashed sweat can cause increased bacteria production, which could lead to bacterial infection and unpleasant body odour. You can avoid this all by taking proper care to maintain personal hygiene. You can avoid unpleasant body odour by showering properly daily and wearing fresh clothes every day.

#2. Bad Breath And Other Oral Problems

If you don’t pay attention to your oral hygiene, you can face many problems like bad breath and cavities. When you eat food, it sometimes gets stuck in your teeth, which after decaying causes bad breath. This can also further result in tooth decay and bleeding in the gums. Bad oral hygiene can create many dental problems for you, which will make it difficult to even eat food.

Excessive smoking, use of tobacco, and drinking an excessive amount of soda can harm your teeth beyond repair. You can avoid tooth decay or bad breath by brushing your teeth at least two times a day. Also, cleaning your tongue properly while brushing will help in avoiding any bad breath.

#3. Catching Cold Or Seasonal Flu

There are high chances of you catching the seasonal flu if you maintain poor hygiene. When in public space, you touch a lot of places and pick up viruses, bacteria, or other germs. Those viruses enter your body through the nose, eyes, or mouth after you touch your face with your hands.

The best way to avoid catching the flu is to wash your hands frequently and avoid touching your face frequently. If you are not well, you must avoid going out or in case you have to go wear a mask and use cloth when sneezing or coughing.

#4. Fungal Infection

If you have poor hygiene, you can have a fungal infection on your skin. Ring worm is one of the most common forms of skin fungal infection. This fungal infection occurs mainly because of improper maintenance of body hygiene. You can suffer from itching in different areas of your skin and can also suffer from blisters.

If not treated properly, the ringworm fungal infection can spread to other parts of your body. The constant itching will make it difficult for you to spend your time. The best way to avoid getting such an infection is to maintain proper body hygiene by showering daily, cleaning your body properly, and wearing clean and dry clothes.

#5. Body Lice

Body lice are one of the most uncomfortable and hazardous things that can happen to you if you don’t maintain proper body hygiene. Lice are tiny insects that live in your clothing and beddings while feeding on skin residues.

Lice infection is highest in armpit and groin areas where humidity is high. Lice infestation can happen on your body, in your head, or in pubic hair. The lice can result in severe itching on your whole body and can also spread from you to others around you. 

To avoid lice, you should shower frequently, wear clean fresh clothes daily and change bedsheets at least once a week. 

#6. Chronic Diarrhea

The unhygienic surrounding environment can cause diarrhea in children and adults. There is a high chance of diarrhea outbreaks in regions where people defecate out in open. The non-availability of clean drinking water also contributes to the chances of diarrhea outbreaks.

This can be avoided by maintaining a clean surrounding environment and providing clean drinking water. This has to work out at the community level to avoid diarrhea outbreaks.

#7. Vector-Borne Disease

Vector-borne diseases include dengue, malaria, chikungunya that need mosquitos as vectors for transmission. Mosquito spread is widely related to the unhygienic surrounding environment. Which could include standing water that gets contaminated with mosquitos. And becomes a source of mosquitos that spreads dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases.

The spread of such diseases can be avoided by keeping the surrounding environment clean and making sure there is no standing water in the surroundings. Especially during monsoon water gets collected at different places and leads to disease breakout. Attention should be paid to avoid such water gathering by maintaining proper drainage.

Conclusion

Poor hygiene, both at the personal and environmental level can lead to many diseases. Poor personal hygiene can cause various infections in your body and make you susceptible to catching viral infections.

Poor environmental hygiene can result in disease outbreaks. This needs to be a workout at the community level to make surroundings free from disease outbreak conditions.

Read more about the effects of the environment on your health here.

If you think there are more ways by which poor hygiene can impact your health. Comment below to let us know about your views.