"Handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year. Together, they are responsible for the majority of all child deaths. Yet, despite its lifesaving potential, handwashing with soap is seldom practiced and difficult to promote.

Turning handwashing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit could save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter. A vast change in handwashing behavior is critical to meeting the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths among children under the age of five by two-thirds by 2015.

Global Handwashing Day focuses on children because not only do they suffer disproportionately from diarrheal and respiratory diseases and deaths, but research shows that children – the segment of society so often the most energetic, enthusiastic, and open to new ideas – can also be powerful agents for changing behaviors like handwashing with soap in their communities."

http://www.globalhandwashingday.org/, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Global_Handwashing_Day, http://www.who.int/gpsc/events/2008/15_10_08/en/index.html, http://www.cdc.gov/features/handwashing/.

I find it disgusting when a guy comes out of the stall and just passes up the sink. Working in fastfood has changed my aspect on washing my hands and I usually scrub my hands down after every bathroom use.

Everyone always told me I did it wrong, you were meant to apply soap first. This is a small personal victory for me.

318632640' post='18830539']
I find it disgusting when a guy comes out of the stall and just passes up the sink. Working in fastfood has changed my aspect on washing my hands and I usually scrub my hands down after every bathroom use.
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Only time I don't is if I can't :shrug:.


:huh: How would that even work?

.... I've heard things... happen in the bathroom they never washed their hands.
~

As for the hand cleaning method Didn't you guys know were supposed to leave your hands wet with soap? :ninja:

I don't think it matters. Soap works because it mixes with both water and oil molecules at the same time, allowing the water to drag away oils and various other filth that it normally wouldn't (not without a ton more water at least). So applying first or second shouldn't make that big of a difference, so long as it all ends up mixed and rinsed down the drain at the end.

Now one thing few people do is the fingernails. I always heard you were supposed to lather up, and then twist all of the fingernails of one hand in the palm of the other to clean them out better. Lots of germs like to hide away under there.

Edit: I admit to sometimes skipping hand washing after using the bathroom and just using hand sanitizer instead though. :whistling:

Oh hand sanitizer, my universal panacea.

I'm not even sure... Just people around me have always done it and told me I was weird for not.

Aye, but you're gunna have trouble getting sufficient quantities of soap on if there's no water involved, surely? With liquid soap you'd be fine, but a bar would make it difficult.


Done that too (sometimes out of necessity), but its not in the same league as completely skipping any attempt to clean one's hands.

Oh heavens I couldn't imagine trying to apply a bar of soap dry. :confused:

Although all of the good modern hand soap dispensers give you a nice ready made foam so I haven't used bar soap to wash my hands in years. That's kind of a shower only thing.

Soap is a luxury?

Where does it say that?

Even villagers in Uganda can get soap.

They like colorful soap better than white soap. They think the blue/pink/green means it has medicine.

Even with liquid soap your hands should be wet. The reason you want to get a good lather going is that it gets in all the spaces between your fingers and the creases and ridges in your skin. Wet your hands, then apply soap, lather like a mofo and once you've got everything cleaned, then you can rinse. Why don't you try applying liquid car wash soap directly to a car and see how effective it is?

In modern society even washing hands won't help us. My college has pizzas in the cafeteria twice a week and I watched the assistant of the woman at the counter put his finger way up into his ear and then smell it afterwards making a scowling face at the smell before he went to pick up my slice of pizza =.= ...

Never trusted that cafeteria since.

But I always wash my hands and I always make (not tell but make, he's not going anywhere without my consent) my little brother do that too if I notice him trying to leave the WC without washing his hands.

Working as a cashier in a supermarket makes me wonder just how many of the customers whose products and cards I handle, actually wash their hands and such, noticed a trend with me getting sicker more often since I started working there.

By "fine" I meant only in regards to being able to get soap on you hands and spread it out. Thanks for pointing that out, though -- don't want people getting wrong ideas :thumbsup:.

EDIT:
You'll be pleased to hear that I have much higher standards/awareness than that. Unfortunately for you, I'm on the other side of the world and mostly do barwork, not food :hehe:. One thing that bugs me is people getting their hands all over the top of a glass when they can avoid it... that's where my lips are going, after all, and its generally not that hard to grab the bottom instead .


Only thing I can suggest for you is washing your hands whenever you get the chance and keeping your hands well away from your face while you're working :shrug:. Money is pretty dirty even with personal hygiene; coins spend decades kicking around without being cleaned (bar the occasional washing machine incident), get dropped on the ground/dirt/all sorts of floors...

I turn the nozzle, lather up my hands with soap, then wash them. It's not that difficult to imagine. :rolleyes:

:shrug: It's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

[tootingofhorn]

I've had specific classes teach me how to wash my hands and was then tested on it with UV fluorescent powder.... Apparently I'm quite good at washing my hands... woo?

Some soap is better than others... bleh my first test there was not a spot remaining. My second test (dif soap) there were a couple spots left (though I think that was honestly mostly my skin turning white from being in the water so long the whole chapped thing... soap refused to lather after minutes of scrubbing >_< I blame the schools.) I was still way cleaner than what was required to pass.
[/tootingofhorn]

but really... if you just peed on your own hands wash em plz k thx, but also don't wash your hands every 30 seconds and bathe in purel... there is a happy medium

I have chronic diarrhea and I also have IBS. I never wash my hands after my frothy messes.

TEEHEE!

Just kidding.

:shifty:

Assuming it's liquid soap.

I always wash my hands... and avoid all public restrooms... and apply hand sanitizer regularly. I'm a germaphobe.

Oh. I thought this was about handwashing clothes.


I find it disgusting how many people don't wash their hands. Women are shocking. In the last three years, I have only once seen someone spend as long as I do washing my hands. Everyone just seems to skip the process completely, or they just wet their hands extremely briefly and then dry them. It's just gross. They must have such an accumulation of disgusting on their hands from all the things they have touched throughout the day.

Apparently handbags are often pretty filthy, too. 'Cause of getting taken everywhere and not always being kept off the ground...