Why are there so many people who don't wash their hands...

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...after a toilet visit?

In my country, people seem to be too lazy to wash their hands even after a poop, it disturbs me, knowing that I always wash my hands after a wee and do it more than once after a poop. I also keep my nails incredibly short so there doesn't get any filth underneat it.

I guess I'm a weird case then.

I also shower daily, while most other people over here do it like once every 2 days or even 3 days.

Is sanitairy hygiene being overlooked these days or what?

Imo, you're perfectly fine.
I'd find someone who does not wash their hands after "business" to be quite ... unnaproachable.
I also like to bath every day

I have a huge thing about handwashing. I'm not obsessive-compulsive, I wash my hands a reasonable amount of times daily in response to a real situation, like going to the bathroom. I do, however, have a special interest in bacteria and viruses, which has led to a special focus on handwashing. I think it is incredibly unfair to not wash your hands, and then expose anyone else who touches things you touch to your germs. Some of those folks may be immuno-compromised-- anyone with diabetes, any babies, people over 80, etc, will have decreased immune functioning.

OK, that said, my rant about handwashing has become kind of a joke among people I know. Everyone has gotten the lecture at some point, along with instructions for how to hand wash properly. By now, they think it's kind of funny, and if any of them were lurking in this site, reading posts, they would recognize me by my rant. My handwashing rant may in fact be my biggest claim to fame. Which is a little sad.

So if the OP is weird, I'm weird, too, but honestly, I think we all just need to wash our hands.

I can see the thing about hand washing but about the whole hair thing. It's actually not healthy for your hair if you wash it everyday. The strips the hair of it's oils and dries it out more. This can be really bad if your hair is already prone to dryness. Also, I have really thick, poofy, wavy hair. I don't have the patience in dealing with my nappy hair everyday. My hair tends to go extremely dry if I wash it everyday. I usually wash my hair every few days and then style it. I still wash my face and stuff every day though.

You're not weird, but smart believe me the field that I'm in * health care * I know too well what if left behind on hands if someone doesn't wash their hands.

I wish more people would wash their hands. My parents don't seem to wash their hands much at all. I hate it when they touch my food, you never know where their hands have been. I always wash the food when they turn their back, because it's disgusting that they don't wash their hands much after the bathroom and who knows what else they do. I generally don't touch doorknobs with my hands much, I use something in place of it that I can throw away and hide from people so they don't know, or I use hand sanitizer shortly after. It seems like my parents get offended if they find out any of this, so I try to not offend them, but it's very odd to me that they get offended when all they have to do is clean their hands, yet they choose not to on many occasions.

I am no clean freak either. I wash my hands at least with hot water every time after the toilet, after petting the animals, before and after touching potentially harmful food, or whenever they get dirty enough. The way I see it is if I want to be clean and I don't want others to be subjected to a dirty and possibly hazardous environment then I will wash my hands... Apparently some people don't think the same way... or don't care.

Honestly, anything involving hygiene is not my strong suit. I a to-do list that says "put in contacts" or I will forget every single day even though I don't mind wearing them. Likewise when I go to the bathroom I have to remind myself "wash your hands. It has never been automatic for me.

Not washing hands might make a little sense - it helps your immune system. My mother didn't see anything wrong with letting me play in the mud near the water, climbing trees and those things. I was allowed to catch a cold or get hurt when I did something stupid like jumping on the ice and falling face-down. As a result, I rarely fall ill, even when I'm taking absurd risks like spending time with people who have the flu or going outside in just a shirt and jeans in the middle of winter. On the other hand, people who were kept to obsessive hygienic standards are bed-ridden every time anyone sneezes in their general direction.

Still, washing your hands after going to the loo is something I think isn't too much to ask. I wash my hands before I eat a regular meal, and after I've been to the toilet, and when I come home after spending time in public places.

I think not wiping your *** properly together with not washing your hands properly would actually make you more ill than hopping into the shower twice a day out of fear of stains.

Imagine all the filthy bacteria/parasites you ingest when you lick your filthy fingers afterwards if you don't take care of yourself.

Immune system won't cover you anymore if the amount of filth you ingest is way too much.

I just eat right, that usually keeps my immune system working pretty good.

I don't know why people don't wash. But I suspect it has to do with not thinking things through and not being in the habit. To me there are times when you really must wash them and after using the bathroom is definitely one, as well as right before handling food (preparing it or eating it), and during food prep if you handle raw meat or even produce that hasn't been washed.

My mom was pretty big on teaching us to wash our hands, so it became a habit early on. I also very early in life realized I hated my hands to feel dirty, sticky, etc. So even as a small child I liked my hands clean.

I'm not OCD, in fact I'm sort of a cluttered, messy person, and soap dries my hands, so I use lotion a lot too, but hand-washing is important to me.

The only times in my life I've gotten sick a lot were when I was in school, when I worked graveyard shift and couldn't get enough sleep, and when I worked in a large, crowded, open-plan office.

i don't get poop or urine on my hands when i go to the toilet. i don't like soap or wet hands but i will wash them all the time at work as i work on a construction site where the risk is higher. I will wash after touching raw meat/fish/egg.

i guess they get washed when i use shower gel in the shower most days.

the idea of hygiene is really a bit of a myth as far as i can see. i do see there being a risk with faeces but otherwise anything that is dangerous is fairly unavoidable and i'd guess rubbing soap all over your hands multiple times a day is not good for your skin

if i have cuts on my hands i think i'd be more careful

I think i'm happy to accept that bacteria and pathogens are everywhere and handwashing does very little to prevent infection in most home settings

I don't typically bother unless I get something on them...I also don't get sick. Last time I got sick I was 15 and I'm 22.

Actually, I agree that it is not a good idea to be a sanitation freak. If our homes are overly clean, we won't be able to build any immunity to normal pathogens in our environments. And frequent sanitation can lead to super-bacteria, as we usually manage to destroy the weakest ones and leave the toughest ones behind. In fact, current research on allergies and asthma links them directly to cultures which tend to oversanitize their homes. Third world kids rarely have asthma. Also, a few parasites also seem to be healthy, and research suggests that the components of our immune systems that evolved to fight parasites are now "out of work," and are fighting harmless pathogens instead, like pollen.

Bacteria are also a normal inhabitant of our skin, and unless you are immuno-compromised, you should not get sick from the bacteria that normally colonize your body. But, when it comes to hands, several issues remain.

1. Viruses are never normal inhabitants in our bodies, and can make us sick. We develop resistance to viruses we meet a lot, but can become sick when we meet new ones. I always wash my hands when I've been out in public.

2. If I have a virus, I can easily get others sick if I use poor hand hygiene. If they happen to be immuno-compromised (many people are), I can be endangering their well-being.

3. Feces are not healthy to eat. We probably have some resistance to the normal bacteria in our own bowels, but again, the people around us, or using the shopping cart after us, may not.

4. So even if I know I never get sick, something left on my hands could easily get someone else very ill. So when I'm feeling indifferent to my own health, I think about the health of others, and wash my hands.

OK, since we're talking about all this stuff, and since this is one of my special interests, I just want to say that bacteria are unbelievably amazing organisms. They evolve, they communicate, they reach out with finger-like projections and touch each other, thereby transmitting critical information about how to fight the evil armies coming to destroy them. And they win! we can never destroy them, not entirely. I love them for that. On a scale of one to ten, how weird would it be to get a bacteria tattoo? I'm not always the best judge of when something is too weird.