HEALTHY FAMILY
Hand Hygiene 101
How to teach your kids to
properly wash their hands
The best way to
prevent getting
sick, whether with
pink eye, a cold or
even the flu? Wash
your hands.

f you ask my kindergartener about pink
eye, he’ll tell you that it’s caused by touch-
ing your butt and then touching your eye.

It’s graphic, I know, but it turns out there’s
some truth to his disgusting explanation.

“Pink eye is caused by a virus same
as viruses that cause runny nose and
cough and ear infections,” says Dr. Linda
Fu, a general pediatrician at Children’s
National. It just so happens that the ade-
novirus that causes pink eye can be spread
through, well, poop.

Viruses, including adenovirus, are
transmitted when you touch any mucous
membrane — eyes, nose or mouth — with
germy hands. The best way to prevent get-
ting sick, whether with pink eye, a cold or
even the flu? Wash your hands.

Proper Handwashing
Technique One reason why little kids get sick so often
is because they aren’t washing their hands
properly … if at all. There’s almost always
something they’d rather be doing than
spending even one more second in the
bathroom after using the toilet.

So it’s our job as parents to help our
kids understand why handwashing is
critical, says Dr. Fu. She suggests explain-
ing to them that germs make them sick,
and if they don’t like being sick, then it’s
important to wash their hands.

However, successful
handwashing requires a bit more time and effort than sim-
ply squirting some soap into their palms and
rinsing it off. Children (and grown-ups, too)
need to rub their soapy hands together for at
least 20 seconds — or the time it takes the
sing the ABCs — because it’s the lathering
that actually reduces the number of germs.

Foaming hand washes make it easier for
little kids to generate a lather; however,
proper handwashing technique is more
important than the type of soap.

“As long as they’re generating lather
and getting all parts of the hand and wash-
ing for long enough, any type is fine,” says
Dr. Fu.

36 Washington FAMILY MARCH 2020
After 20 seconds of handwashing, it’s
time to rinse and dry hands with a towel—
but it has to be clean “If you’re using a
towel after somebody who hasn’t washed
their hands so well then that’s just re-in-
fecting the hand,” she says. If you’re unsure
whether a towel is clean, you can use a
paper towel or, as a last resort, air dry.

And, of course, if someone at home is
sick, make sure to change out your hand
towels frequently.

The Moldy Bread Experiment
Still need help convincing your kids that
proper handwashing can help keep them
healthy? Conduct your own version of the
hand hygiene experiment that went viral in
a Facebook post at the end of last year.

To test the cleanliness of their stu-
dents’ hands, two elementary school
teachers placed five slices of white bread
in separate plastic bags and taped them
to their classroom wall. The control slice
went into a baggie untouched (use clean
tongs or turn the bag inside out to pick it
up). Three more slices were bagged after
being touch by kids with dirty hands, kids
who used hand sanitizer and kids who
washed with soap and water. The last slice
was wiped on a Chromebook before being
sealed in a baggie.

After a few days, the control slice and
the slice handled by kids who had properly
washed their hands looked about the same.

The hand sanitizer slice had one large mold
spot on it, and the slice touched with dirty
hands was more than partially moldy. But
the grossest slice was the one rubbed on
the Chromebook. It was almost completely
covered in dark green mold.

Dr. Fu hasn’t seen the experiment online,
but she isn’t surprised by the results.

“Everybody is concerned when they see
somebody sneezing near them. But don’t
forget, germs can also survive for several
hours on surfaces such as Chromebooks,”
she says. “Even if you aren’t around some-
body who is sick, you may be touching
something that has germs on it.”
ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS/HUGHSTONEIAN
I BY PJ FEINSTEIN