Let Them Eat Dirt

Once five friends forward you the same article, it is time to share it with the rest of the world. This one was by New York Times health writer Jane Brody, and it stated quite simply: Dirt good.

Well, it didn't state it quite that simply. Brody works for the Times, after all. While it still has a dime in the bank (and that does seem to be its current balance), the Times is willing to spring for whole sentences. So what she wrote was this:

"Accumulating evidence strongly suggests that eating dirt is good for you. In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with 'dirt' spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma."

Got that? Dirt may help prevent all the allergies and asthma we're seeing.

Without getting into the ins and outs of bodily worms (for the record: ew), let us just say that this is great news for all of us parents more than a little suspicious of the clinical levels of cleanliness being foisted upon us.

From portable Purell to the personal antibacterial place mats we're encouraged to tote along to restaurants — as if your local Applebee's is teeming with typhoid — a slew of kid-cleanliness products have sprung up that would have seemed absurd, even obsessive-compulsive, a generation ago.

These products start with the assumption that your child and germs never should meet.

Which is a fine assumption if your child has (God forbid) just undergone a stem cell transplant.

But otherwise, healthy children and germs and dirt have had a long and happy relationship since the beginning of time. Brody even says that may be why babies put everything in their mouths. Not to feel things or taste them. To get a great big mouthful of germs. (And worms.)

The science seems to suggest that only by being exposed to a whole slew of bacteria does the body learn to sort out the good from the bad. (Same as being exposed to a whole lot of people, by the way.) When the body only gets exposed to a limited spectrum of germs, it never develops that sorting skill. As a result, it overreacts — perhaps with allergies (or, in the case of meeting new people, perhaps with paranoia) — to any germs it meets later on.

So when you start to think, "Do I need a shopping cart liner, because those carts seem so gross," or, "Gee, I better wipe off that doorknob/toy/railing/tray/fork/swing/pillow/phone/pretzel/shoe/pacifier/air molecule my child is about to touch," think about the fact that there is a difference between the cleanliness levels required by hospitals filled with the sickest of the sick and the levels required by your average suck-on-the-highchair-leg tot.

Then relax, and let her eat the cookie that fell on the floor. Right next to that big ol' pile of night crawlers.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at Advertising Age. She is the founder of FreeRangeKids.com. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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