Personal hygiene is how you care for your body.
One personal benefit of good hygiene is having better health. Keeping your body clean helps prevent illness and infection from bacteria or viruses.
Good personal hygiene habits include:
- Washing the body often. If possible, everybody should have a shower or a bath every day. However, there may be times when this is not possible, for example, when people are out camping or there is a shortage of water, if this happens, a swim or a wash all over the body with a wet sponge or cloth will do.
- Cleaning the teeth at least once a day. Brushing the teeth after each meal is the best way of making sure that gum disease and tooth decay are avoided. It is very important to clean teeth after breakfast and immediately before going to bed
- Washing hands with soap after going to the toilet
- Washing hands with soap before preparing and/or eating food. During normal daily activities, such as working and playing, disease causing germs may get onto the hands and under the nails. If the germs are not washed off before preparing food or eating, they may get onto the food
- Hanging clothes in the sun to dry. The sun’s rays will kill some disease-causing germs and parasites