By: Alexandra Du Toit..
At present, our culture is overly obsessive about germs,
cleanliness, and hygiene. Parents are constantly washing their children’s
hands, using antibacterial soap, alcohol tinged wipes or changing them the
second they have dirt on their clothes.
I don’t know about you, but when I was a child I liked to
make mud pies, walk around barefoot and climb any tree I could find.
Instinctively I craved to immerse myself in the natural environment.
When I had my own children I reminded myself of this as they
shoveled sand into their mouths at the beach or tasted a pebble or a leaf. It
is natural for children to be as close to nature as possible. Well, now
research into the connection between getting dirty and a immune system health
has found that this modern obsession with germs and cleanliness might be
leading to the rise in allergies, asthma and inflammatory bowel disease. (1)
What is it About a Child’s Attraction to Dirt?
According to Mary Ruebush PhD, author of Why Dirt is Good: 5 Ways to Make Germs Your Friends, the attraction is based on millions of years
of evolution.
Just like any other muscle in our body, the immune system
needs to be exercised in order to fully develop and become strong enough to
resist illness and disease. Eating dirt as a child turns out to be the ideal
training to build your immune system’s overall fitness.
Wrote Mary Ruebush:
“What a child is doing when he puts things in his mouth is
allowing his immune response to explore his environment. Not only does this
allow for ‘practice’ of immune responses, which will be necessary for
protection, but it also plays a critical role in teaching the immature immune
response what is best ignored”
Children who grow up on farms and are exposed to all sorts
of bugs, worms and natural elements have demonstrably less allergies and
autoimmune problems than urban children who spend most of their time indoors.
Playing outside barefoot every now and again and digging in the dirt more often
would do wonders for the health of today’s youngsters.
Our Natural Instinct is to Love Dirt..
New research says that it is possible that children today
are ‘too’ clean, and would be better off sticking to their natural instincts.
In a 2012 study, researchers tested what would happen to
mice if they were bred to lack stomach bacteria and how it would effect their
immune system. It found that exposure early in life to microbes helped to train
certain immune cells to resist disease later in life. Exposure to those same
microbes as an adult did not have the same effect. The immune cells affected
were generally those in the lungs and colon due to hyperactivity in T cells.
This is similar to that found in humans with asthma. (2)
The most important point from the research is the idea that
during the early years of life there are some crucial biological developments
that happen which cannot be recreated later on in life — and building a strong
immune system is one of them. (3)
Playing in Dirt Builds a Strong Immune System..
By no means am I suggesting that you feed your child spoonfuls
of dirt, rather I am letting you know that you can stop worrying about dirt and
germs and place your energy elsewhere. People are so worried about their
children catching a cold or flu that they are obsessively focused on whether
their child is clean and germ-free. However, this seems to work against the
natural rhythm of life. Science has proven that exposure to dirt is beneficial
to a child’s life. They love dirt because they instinctively know it is good
for them in order to grow up with strong immune systems.
We can now relax and trust that our children will actually
be healthier the dirtier they get. Take a deep breath and enjoy watching the
joy your child experiences playing in dirt while knowing that they are building
their intuitive instincts and a strong immune system.
Source:wakeup-world.com
