The Negative Effects of Poor Personal Hygiene on Health and Wellbeing

Do you know what are the effects of poor personal hygiene on your health and well-being?

Skipping on hand washing, teeth brushing, showering, etc, may affect your health. As a result, you may feel sick or weak. This will affect your physical appearance as well, which will affect your personal presentation. 

Want to know how this happens? 

Read below to see examples of poor personal hygiene that affect the health of a person and later how it affects his general well-being.

What is poor personal hygiene?

Bad personal hygiene is when a person neglects his body’s health and cleanliness needs and loses the desire and need to feel healthy and attractive.

Poor personal hygiene examples and its effects on health

1. Body odor

Body odor is one of the most embarrassing effects of poor personal hygiene.

It embarrasses the people around you but may also develop unsupportable allergies and skin itching.

Examples of behaviors that may cause body the release of an unpleasant body odor:

• Infrequent showering.
• Not replacing your smelly socks.
• Not airing shoes.
• Not washing your feet.
• Wearing smelly, stained or dirty clothes daily.
• Not changing your underwear regularly.

2. Bad breath and mouth diseases

Bad breath is another poor personal hygiene issue that is a sign of poor oral health.

When you encounter bad breath coming out of your mouth, it might mean that, inside your mouth, tooth decay, dental caries, or bleeding gums is developing. And you need to treat these oral health issues before it becomes a bigger problem.  

Examples of behaviors that lead to oral hygiene diseases are:

• Not brushing your teeth regularly.
• Not flossing.
• Not cleaning your tongue.
• Drinking too much acidic drinks.
• Heavy smoking.

3. Influenza

Another popular effect of poor personal hygiene is spreading viruses and diseases.

This has its peak in the cold seasons when the immune systems weakens and you get a cold. 

If you don’t wash your hands regularly after getting in contact with somebody who feels sick, you may get contaminated. 

Or vice-versa, if you are sick and you sneeze and cough a lot, make sure you cover your mouth so that you don’t contaminate other people around you.

Examples of practices which promotes unhealthy bacteria and virus spreading:

• Not wearing a face mask when not feeling well.
• Not covering your mouth with a cloth or elbow when sneezing or coughing.
• Not avoiding social gatherings.
• Not washing your hands often. 

4. Body lice

Body lice are small insects that develop in your unwashed bedding or clothing.

These insects live on the human body and produce eggs in the clothing. They are feeding themselves with body skin residues.

The lice’s favorite parts of the body are the armpit and the groin because the humidity in these areas is high.

Behaviors that may lead to body lice development:

• Not showering regularly.
• Not changing the bedding at least once a week.
• Not washing your clothes.
• Wearing dirty and smelly clothes. 

5. Herpes

Herpes is a form of fungi that most often appears on mouth lips.

Examples of behaviors which may lead to getting a herpes infection.

• Drinking from the same cup used by someone with herpes that used it before. 
• Using forks, knives or tablespoons after they've been used by someone with herpes.

The effects of poor personal hygiene on well-being

1. It affects your social life

Poor personal hygiene leaves visible signs of poor health on a person’s body. Signs of poor health keep many people at distance to avoid getting a disease.

For example, many people naturally avoid those who sneeze and cough in their face without covering the mouth.

So if you expect that people will tell you to take a shower when you need to, they won’t. Once noticing your personal hygiene issues they’ll politely leave the room leaving with your problems alone.

That makes sense.

It’s your job to control your body odor. That’s why it’s called “personal hygiene”. 

2. It hurts your personal presentation

Personal presentation is the skill of communicating about yourself through your physical appearance.

The better you look the better message you communicate to your friends, colleagues, and others.

What message do you think your physical presentation communicates when you show up at work unkempt and release body odors.

Bad message. Right?

That poor message also negatively affects your efforts at work, for example.

Let's say that you, daily, meet clients face to face.

How satisfied customers would be after working with you after noticing the unpleasant body odor?

Your customers would enjoy working with you if you’d have a professional look and meet them with a friendly smile and no personal hygiene issue would disturb them. 

3. It hurts your career 

Poor personal hygiene has negative effects on your career as well.

One of these disadvantages of poor health is that it is hard to earn a promotion or a salary increase.

A study shows that 23% of employers are less likely to promote an employee with poor personal hygiene or physical appearance. 

This study conveys the fact that poor personal hygiene may be one of the major reasons why an employee doesn't get promoted.

The employer thinks that:

• Jokes about your bad hygiene will spread throughout the office damaging your reputation in the eyes of your coworkers.
• Your inappropriate personal presentation in the workplace affects your self-esteem and confidence.
• an employer who cares about his team's health and safety will pass on an employee who is potentially infected with other members of the team.

4. It hurts your romantic relationships

Poor personal hygiene lowers your chances of finding that one person with whom you'd share mutually satisfying moments.

By having bad breath or unpleasant body odor, you make it difficult for anyone to like you. Your hygiene issues may turn your partner off hurting the relationship in the long run.

Even if someone likes you, be aware that it's uncomfortable to stay around a smelly person or an unhygienic person.

Conclusion