Editing Hygiene (section)

===Challenges===
Excessive body hygiene is a possible sign of [[obsessive–compulsive disorder]]. Neglecting bodily hygiene, or the cleanliness of one's environment, may be a sign of [[major depression]] and other psychological disorders.

====Hygiene hypothesis and allergies====
{{Main|Hygiene hypothesis}}
Although media coverage of the [[hygiene hypothesis]] has declined, popular folklore continues to sometimes assert that dirt is healthy and hygiene unnatural. This has caused health professionals to be concerned that hygiene behaviors which are the foundation of public health are being undermined. In response to the need for effective hygiene in home and everyday life settings, the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene developed a "risk-based" or targeted approach to home hygiene that seeks to ensure that hygiene measures are focused on the places and times most critical for infection transmission.<ref name="ISFHH 2021" /> While targeted hygiene was originally developed as an effective approach to hygiene practice, it also seeks, as far as possible, to sustain "normal" levels of exposure to the microbial flora of our environment to the extent that is important to build a balanced immune system.

Although there is substantial evidence that some microbial exposures in early childhood can in some way protect against allergies, there is no evidence{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} that humans need exposure to harmful microbes (infection) or that it is necessary to develop a clinical infection.<ref>{{multiref2
|1={{cite web|year=2012|title=The Hygiene Hypothesis and its Implications for Home Hygiene, Lifestyle and Public Health|url=https://www.ifh-homehygiene.org/best-practice-review/hygiene-hypothesis-and-its-implications-home-hygiene-lifestyle-and-public-0|publisher=International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene|vauthors=Stanwell Smith R, Bloomfield SF, Rook GA}}
|2={{cite web|year=2012|title=The Hygiene Hypothesis and its implications for home hygiene, lifestyle and public health: Summary|url=https://www.ifh-homehygiene.org/best-practice-review/hygiene-hypothesis-and-its-implications-home-hygiene-lifestyle-and-public|publisher=International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene}}
|3={{cite journal|last1=Bloomfield|first1=S. F.|last2=Stanwell-Smith|first2=R.|last3=Crevel|first3=R.W.R.|last4=Pickup|first4=J.|date=April 2006|title=Too clean, or not too clean: the Hygiene Hypothesis and home hygiene|url=https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/19637/1/cea_2463.pdf|journal=Clinical and Experimental Allergy|volume=36|issue=4|pages=402–25|doi=10.1111/j.1365-2222.2006.02463.x|pmc=1448690|pmid=16630145}}
}}</ref> Nor is there evidence{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} that hygiene measures such as hand washing, food hygiene, etc., are linked to increased susceptibility to [[atopy|atopic disease]]. If this{{ambiguous|date=August 2023}} is the case, there is no conflict between the goals of preventing infection and minimizing allergies. {{weasel inline|text=A consensus is now developing among experts|date=August 2023}} that the answer lies in more fundamental changes in lifestyles that have led to decreased exposure to certain microbial or other species, such as helminths, that are important for development of immuno-regulatory mechanisms.<ref name="Rook2010">{{cite journal|last1=Rook|first1=G.A.W.|date=11 March 2010|title=99th Dahlem Conference on Infection, Inflammation and Chronic Inflammatory Disorders: Darwinian medicine and the 'hygiene' or 'old friends' hypothesis|journal=Clinical & Experimental Immunology|volume=160|issue=1|pages=70–79|doi=10.1111/j.1365-2249.2010.04133.x|pmc=2841838|pmid=20415854}}</ref> There is still much uncertainty as to which lifestyle factors are involved.