Don’t you just love it when science catches up and confirms what grandmoms of old used to know?
How many can remember your dear old, saintly grandma saying when she was watching you while mom and dad were out, “You have to eat a pound of dirt before you die, so have fun.” (Only to have mom and dad shriek when they got home upon seeing you dirty from head to toe!)
See, the thing is grandmoms knew something long ago that has gotten lost in our hyper-sanitized and uber clean western world. They just knew that kids and dirt together is a good thing.
(Of course, there are also stories that say eating boogers is good for kids, too – if they were not good for you, boogers would taste as gross as they look, not have a salty flavor kids can’t resist. Go figure.)
Recently we ran across an article earlier this year headlined, “Why Kids Need Dirt To Be Healthy.”
The online article was penned by “Katie, the Wellness Mama” who is a wife and mom of six. (So, she knows something about raising kids.) Her article states, “We have antibacterial soap, antibacterial spray, antibacterial cleaning wipes and a myriad of disinfecting cleaning products. Kids are growing up in clean, disinfected, sterile environments. We go to great lengths to make sure we are protected from germs. At the same time, we have rising rates of allergies, autoimmune problems and gut related disorders (especially in children).”
And then she asked, “Could there be a connection?”
The science is in and the answer seems to be a resounding, “Yes!”
NPR interviewed one of the authors of the book, Dirt Is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System. Jack Gilbert, PhD and his co-author Rob Knight seems to back up grandma and the Wellness Mama’s claim dirt and healthy kids.
NPR asked, “Are things like allergies an unintended consequence of trying to protect our kids too much?”
Gilbert answered, “Absolutely. In the past, we would have eaten a lot more fermented foods, which contain bacteria. We would have allowed our children to be exposed to animals and plants and soil on a much more regular basis. Now we live indoors. We sterilize our surfaces. Their immune systems then become hyper-sensitized. You have these little soldier cells in your body called neutrophils, and when they spend too long going around looking for something to do, they become grumpy and pro-inflammatory. And so when they finally see something that’s foreign, like a piece of pollen, they become explosively inflammatory. They go crazy. That’s what triggers asthma and eczema and often times, food allergies.”
Did you know there is even term for the line of thinking that dirt is good for humans. Yup, it’s true. Hygiene Hypothesis is “a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (such as the gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by suppressing the natural development of the immune system.”
This hypothesis says the lack of exposure leads to defects in the establishment of immune tolerance.
A doctor of internal medicine in New York, Martin Blaser, MD is quoted saying, “When we overly sanitize infants’ environments to protect them from illness, we may instead be depriving them the opportunity to build a strong immune system.”
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What does this mean for you? About this: Take off your shoes and walk in the yard. Dig in your garden without wearing gloves. Let the soil get under your fingernails. Love your family, invite them out with you in the dirt. Play in the rain, splash in the mud. Let those microbes under the soil work their magic inside you.
(However if you’re letting the kids crawl around the yard, on the grass and in the dirt, and you have a lawn service treatments, ask your doctor about fertilizers and kids. There could be some harmful effects.)
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And, what about boogers? Hey, this is a blog about dirt. Want to know about boogers and kids, do your own research (cuz we already did!)
References:
www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/16/537075018/dirt-is-good-why-kids-need-exposure-to-germs
www.wellnessmama.com/12908/kids-need-dirt
www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html
www.childrensmd.org/uncategorized/its-ok-for-your-child-to-pick-his-nose-really
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