Feces (poop) from people or animals is an important source of germs like Salmonella, E. coli O157, and norovirus that cause diarrhea, and it can spread some respiratory infections like adenovirus and hand-foot-mouth disease.
You should always wash your hands after you poop. It protects not only you from getting sick but helps to stop the spread of germs to others. And, consider that poop—feces in medical terms—can spread germs that cause diarrhea and respiratory infections.
Over half (58%) of US adults say they always wash their hands with soap after going to the restroom at home. A quarter (25%) say they wash with soap most of the time after a trip to the bathroom at home, while 10% do this some of the time and 4 percent rarely do.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, fecal matter can spread salmonella, E. coli, and norovirus. Also, a single gram of human feces — which can get on your hands after you use the toilet, but also after a diaper change or helping a young child use the bathroom — can contain a whopping one trillion germs.
Washing hands can keep you healthy and prevent the spread of respiratory and diarrheal infections. Germs can spread from person to person or from surfaces to people when you: Touch your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Prepare or eat food and drinks with unwashed hands.
“So it's wisest to always wash with soap and water even after urinating. Neither plain water nor alcohol hand sanitizers are effective at removing fecal material or killing bacteria in fecal material.”
You Pass on Germs
If you don't wash your hands when they're germy, you could pass those germs to friends and family and get them sick. If you get them on an object -- like a doorknob or handrail -- you could infect people you don't even know. Make sure to lather up after you use the bathroom.
And a lot of people aren't washing their hands after going to the bathroom. In one study that examined the post-bathroom hand-washing behaviors of 3,749 people in the U.S., only 67% of them attempted to wash their hands with soap.
Importance of handwashing
Washing your hands properly can protect you from introducing the virus to your respiratory tract by touching a contaminated surface and then touching your face. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines are to scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds.
According to the Illinois Poison Center, eating poop is “minimally toxic.” However, poop naturally contains the bacteria commonly found in the intestines. While these bacteria don't harm you when they're in your intestines, they're not meant to be ingested in your mouth.
The men we spoke to argued that there's really no need to wash your hands after urinating, and said the only reason people do so is out of social convention. Many said that they would only wash their hands after going to the toilet if someone else was in the bathroom to play witness to their habit.
What percent of the population stands to wipe? While a Reddit user surveyed 950 participants—626 identified as male, 306 identified as female, and 18 people put their gender as “other”—they found that 65.7% of respondents wipe sitting down and 34.3% wipe standing up.
A Consultant Public Health Physician at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Prof. Tanimola Akande, says washing with water, rather than wiping with tissue paper, is more hygienic after defecating.
Water cleans your skin without exposing you to these harsh ingredients and is the best option for keeping your anal area clean. Just say no to soap, but rinse regularly and pat dry.
Should you shower after taking a poop? There is no need for that and often no opportunity. Just wipe yourself well with your toilet paper. Wash your hands with soap and water after that and then you should be good to go on about your business.
Turns out, wiping isn't even the best move in this case. The International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders recommends washing rather than wiping when you have anal discomfort. If you're at home, you can: Wash in the shower with lukewarm water, especially if you have a handheld showerhead.
Not only are women (81%) more likely than men (72%) to describe themselves as very clean rather than just clean, they are also more likely to consider the tested hygiene habits very important.
Most Italian public toilets don't have a toilet seat.
This has to do with maintenance. Since public toilets are often less than spotless, people often climb with their shoes on top of them, not to sit on a potentially dirty seat.
Gently wash your penis each day. Carefully pull back and clean underneath the foreskin, as well as the tip of your penis (the glans) using only water and a very gentle soap. Don't scrub this sensitive area. It is fine to use soap, but using too much could irritate your penis.
A study revealed that only 31 per cent of men and 65 per cent of women wash their hands after using a public restroom.
It's easy to think washing your hands after a trip to the restroom is optional—after all, you only touched your own body parts in there, right? But one of our recent surveys showed that less than two-thirds of men consistently wash their hands after peeing, which is a shockingly low number.
If the staining only happens occasionally and after you use dry tissue to clean yourself after a bowel movement, this may be due to inadequate cleaning. When you have a bowel movement, there will be faeces that stains the inner lining of the anus. We need to clean the anus of this faeces to prevent skidmarks.
Healthy Poop Should Sink in the Toilet
Floating stools are often an indication of high fat content, which can be a sign of malabsorption, a condition in which you can't absorb enough fat and other nutrients from the food you're ingesting, reports Mount Sinai.
Looking at what is on the toilet paper after wiping, done by 37 percent. About 32 percent are thoughtful enough to either spraying air freshener or lighting a match after they are done; and 17 percent like to flush more than once to make sure everything is gone. Others admit to some quirkier tendencies.
The fundamental problem is that the area used for releasing urine and faeces is compressed between thighs and buttocks, so we are more likely than other animals to foul ourselves. We also differ from other animals in our response to our waste, which we tend to regard with disgust.