Grow Up Strong -- Raise a Clean Hand
Do you know one of the easiest ways to keep your children healthy? Teach them to wash their hands effectively and often. Children are constantly coming into contact with germs from other children, adults, animals, certain foods, and contaminated surfaces. Teaching your children proper hand hygiene at an early age will help prevent many common childhood illnesses.
Help your children avoid disease-carrying pathogens by establishing the simple habit of having them wash their hands with warm water and soap several times a day:
- Before eating
- After using the toilet
- After being outdoors
- After playing with pets
- After coughing, sneezing, or blowing their noses
To get young children to take their time washing their hands, have them sing a simple song like "Happy Birthday" while they lather and rinse. It's a good idea to carry alcohol-based hand sanitizers for those on-the-go times when soap and water are not available.
Practicing proper hand hygiene can greatly reduce your child's risk of a number of infectious diseases that commonly spread through hand-to-hand contact, such as the common cold, influenza, skin infections, and several gastrointestinal disorders, such as diarrhea.
RealAge Projection: If your child keeps taking steps to protect his immune system when he's an adult -- by washing his hands often -- his RealAge could be as much as 6 years younger.
