FEATURE
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Photo illustration by Jerry Wang
Causing a sink: Showering habits vary across and within cultures. How much is too much? How much is too little? The answers may seem obvious but social norms have changed drastically over time.
In reality, most of the germs are nothing to worry about, even if the buildup looks like it's a form of the bubonic plague.
"If we did culture the bathrooms, we would probably grow stuff," says Pat Moody, a medical technologist at Watkins Memorial Health Center. "But it probably wouldn't mean anything because it's all harmless."
Students could pick up a virus, such as the cold or the flu, from the communal showers, though, says Patty Quinlan, supervisor of nursing at Watkins. Viruses cannot be grown, so it would be impossible for Watkins' laboratory to determine how many and what kind of viruses are lurking in dorm showers.
Contracting a virus could be as easy as walking around barefoot in the showers with dry, chapped feet, so Quinlan advises students to wear swim shoes or flip-flops to the communal bathrooms, even if they do not have any open wounds.
For one KU student, going showerless freshman year was better than showing in the poorly lit, hair-infested dorm showers.
Samantha Collins, Olathe junior, considers herself to be a regular bather, but she admits she showered sporadically during her stay at the dorms and that sometimes during the winter, she showered only once every three days.
"It didn't help that my best friend, Erica, didn't shower very often either," she says. "It was just a life of life freshman year."
Skipping the shower after a humid or even a cold Kansas day may sound repulsive, but is it a medical no-no?
Quinlan thinks so. Quinlan students should shower every night, unless they did not
leave their house that day. When we are out in public, we come into contact with an unlimited number of bacteria and viruses, she says, and the risk of becoming infected with those germs is heightened by not showering before we go to sleep. Each day, those of us who shower in the morning bring contagious germs into our home, transfer them onto our pillows and sheets and soak in them all night long. So, showering at night is especially important for those students who have aggressive allergies. But some people disagree with this idea.
The idea that everyone needs to shower every day is ridiculous, says Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Dirt on Clean.
People who sweat more than the average person may need to shower every day, she says, but for the most part, to stay healthy, washing anything above the wrists on a daily basis is optional.
"I think this is all propaganda about daily shower and bath with soap and deodorant," she says. "We're all too individual for that."
SKIPPING SHOWERS WON'T HELP YOU SAVE A WHALE OR MONEY
If not showering really is harmful to our bodies, surely it saves us oodles of money on our water bill each month? Doubtful, says the City of Lawrence.
According to the city's website, residents are charged $3.18 for every 1,000 gallons of water used. In Lawrence, the average amount of water used during a 10-minute shower is 40 gallons.
That means if you take a shower every day,you
will use about 1,240 gallons of water per billing cycle. So, at best, you could save yourself the extra $3.18 charged to you for going over 1,000 gallons by cutting out one or two showers per week. But showering any less than six times a week doesn't save you any more money.
Granted, the amount of times you flush your toilet and run water for other purposes plays a part in the cost of your water bill, too, but showering less saves you at most about 10 cents a day, or $38.16 a year, and that's only if your shower head was made before 1992.
In 1992, the federal government changed the standard for showerheads, requiring that no more than 2.5 gallons of water be sprayed out per minute. At the end of the month, students living in newer apartment complexes are using about 775 gallons of water a month — well below the 1,000 gallon mark — so, decreasing the number of showers taken each week would save them no money at all, says Chris Whitley, a spokesman for the Midwest region of the Environmental Protection Agency.
As far as saving the environment goes, Whitley says that as far as he knows, the EPA has never released information suggesting a certain number of showers per week.
"A lot of this comes down to how long you can stand yourself and how long your friends can stand yourself when it comes down to bathing," he says.
POPULAR SHOWERING MYTHS
"I need to use a lot of soap when I shower to get clean."
Absolutely not, says Dr. Lee Bittenbender, a registered dermatologist and owner of Dermatology Center of Lawrence, 930 Iowa St. Soap removes natural oils from the skin and can dry out the skin when too much is used, especially in the winter when your skin is already drier than usual.
"I need to wash my hair every day."
Wrong, says Patty Quinlan, supervisor of nursing at Watkins Memorial Health Center. You need to wash your hair only three to five times a week.
The problem with loofas is not that they are unhealthy, Bittenbender says, it's that people are too rough with them.
"I shouldn't use loofus because they are gross and spread germs."
"Sometimes people get the notion 'I need to exfoliate and scrub the heck out of things and get tingly clean,'" he says. "I don't think there's any scientific basis for that."
Wrong again, says Katherine Ashenburg, author of the book The Dirt on Clean. The type of soap we use has no effect at all on our lives. The type of soap we use does not make us any cleaner, more attractive or more boring.
"Using plain soap is better for my skin than using fragranced body gels."
Bittenbender says the type of soap used matters less than where we use it. If all you have done that day is go to class or go to the gym, you don't need to use soap anywhere but in your armpits and your groin area.
Photo illustration by Jerry Wang
Good, clean fun: Showering is a privilege to many who have spent time in the developing world, where water resources are scarce. But even in the U.S., many shower mays abound
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