Greenfield, Ben, Dirty Kids: How Germs
Can Be Your Child’s Best Friend,
Huffington Post.com
Zamosky, Lisa, Is Dirt Good For Kids?,
WebMD.com
855
Moro Drive
Gilroy
gokids.org
d
o Ki s, I
G
gmhtoday.com
Fa
Article Brought
To You By:
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
Sources:
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
your kids come down with a nasty bug, it’s
better to let their bodies fight it off on their
own. Antibiotics should only be used as a
last resort.
Like all things, keeping your kids
healthy requires balance. They don’t need
to bathe every day or wash their hands and
faces every time they come in from playing
outside, but they also don’t need to be the
neighborhood pigpen. It just requires a
good dose of common sense. If your child
is bitten by a wild animal, like a mouse or a
tick, then they should definitely sanitize the
area and receive proper medication. Eating
with dirt on their hands isn’t a big deal.
As appalling as it might seem, exposing
your kids to pathogenic organisms such
as bacteria, worms, parasites, fungi, and
viruses might be the best thing you do for
them. You’ll be giving them the immuno-
logical advantages they’ll need to fight off
serious illnesses and diseases later in life.
And the great thing is your immune system
will likely benefit too, which might make
you feel better the next time your child
coughs in your face or sneezes all over the
dinner table.
a piece of pollen for example, they over-
react and trigger a massive inflammatory
response, such as asthma, eczema, or food
allergies. Worse still, chronic inflammation
of any kind has been linked to adulthood
illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and
degenerative illnesses like Altzheimer’s.
So what’s the best way to expose our kids
to germs? Let them be kids! Let them gnaw
on grocery cart handles, shove grass, leaves,
and dirt in their mouths, and eat things off
the floor. Even poop is relatively safe to play
with. Is it disgusting? Absolutely! But it will
certainly give your child’s immune system
something to do. Pets are also great for this.
Cats, dogs, hamsters, lizards, and even fish
introduce a variety of germs that your child
might not encounter otherwise. If you don’t
have pets, an occasional trip to the local
farm or petting zoo will do the trick. And, of
course, exposure to other kids helps get the
germs going too.
Another thing you can do is avoid anti-
bacterial soaps and antibiotics. Not only
has it been proven that they aren’t more
effective than regular soap and water, they
have the added bonus of being dangerous.
All antibacterial soaps contain triclosan and
triclocarbon, an antibiotic that is also used
to treat bacterial infections in hospitals.
Bacteria that has been exposed to large
amounts of triclosan and triclocarbon
eventually develop genetic mutations that
make them resistant to these antibiotics.
Unlike us, bacteria have a unique way of
sharing their genetic adaptations. If one
bacterium forms a resistance, it can take that
part of its DNA and give it to one of its non-
resistant buddies, which will then go on to
share with its buddies. The result is a lot of
bacteria developing antibacterial resistance
very quickly, which contributes to the super-
bug issue we’re having today. Overuse of
antibiotics creates the same problem. Even if
A
signifi cant
body of
research
suggests that exposing kids to germs at an
early age gives them more protection from
allergies, asthma, and auto-immune diseases
later in life. In fact, studies have proven
that people who grow up in developing
countries have less immunological and auto-
immune diseases than people who grow
up in industrialized ones. When people
immigrate from a developing country to an
industrialized country, they start to develop
immunological disorders like asthma and
chronic infl ammation the longer they live
in that industrialized area.
Many of the bacteria, viruses, and
parasites that we kill with disinfectant have
been around since our hunter-gatherer days,
when our immune systems were evolving.
As a result, our bodies have become so
dependent on these microbes that our
immune systems can’t develop or function
properly without them. The same way
babies need constant stimulation, input, and
interaction to develop properly, the young
immune system needs constant exposure to
a variety of germs so that it can learn and
adapt. Every person has an array of T-cells,
which are programmed to recognize harm-
ful pathogens and mobilize the immune
system against them. On