Dirty Kids are Healthy Kids, Say Scientists

Children across the world can rejoice over a new study that concludes they should be allowed (and encouraged) to get dirty.

In a report published in the online edition of Nature Medicine scientists claim that being too clean can impair the skin’s natural ability to heal. In short, every time you scrub away all that dirty narst on your kids’ face, you are also killing normal bacteria that live on the skin and help prevent inflammation when he or she gets hurt.

The study comes as good news to some adults as well.

From BBC:

The lobby group Parents Outloud said the work offered scientific support for its campaign to stop children being mollycoddled and over-sanitised.

According to the article, rates of allergies in the UK have tripled over the last decade. It’s gotten so bad that one in three people there now has some kind of allergy. For some groups, like Parents Outloud, the new study confirms fears that the explosion of allergies in developed countries is a result of a cultural obsession with cleanliness.

So what are you waiting for? Go dig a mud pit in your back yard, unleash the kids, and let the healing begin.

[Via: BBC]