The Importance of Good Hygiene: Is Adequate Education Provided in Schools?

Good hygiene is one of those topics everyone knows is important, but not everyone is properly educated on how to maintain it. For teenagers who juggle school, activities, relationships, sports, and more, having solid hygiene habits can make all the difference. It truly has the power to affect your confidence and relationships, your health and your comfort. It can even affect how teenagers in specific perform socially and academically. But even though hygiene is such a huge deal that everyone should be informed about, many high school students feel as though they never fully learned the essentials from school alone, many agreeing they learned more from social media. 

“I honestly wish Coronado offered an actual class focused on educating students about hygiene and taking care of themselves,” junior Ava Carter explained. “People act like we’re just supposed to come with a predisposed knowledge about it, but no one really teaches you how to take care of your body when you’re actually changing and growing.”

While most schools do touch on hygienic habits at some point in health classes, it’s usually glossed over, not getting the attention it deserves and requires. To make matters worse, it’s typically squeezed between bigger topics like nutrition and mental health. Hygiene winds up as a slide or two in a slideshow, or five minutes of a video, but never anything more. This often doesn’t allow for students to have the chance to actually learn, ask questions, or understand why it really matters. Another important thing to mention is not every student has the same access to hygiene resources; many are left to their own devices to get information. Social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, swirling with disinformation, often become resources.

“Good hygiene isn’t just about deodorant, but it’s also about hand washing to prevent the spread of sicknesses, properly washing your body, and being confident that you’re taking good care of your body,” junior Kendall Festa said. “If schools want us to grow up healthy and confident, they need to actually teach us how to do it. We shouldn’t have to learn hygiene from TikTok or figure it out alone. Give us real information, and we’ll use it.”

While hygiene education is indeed present in high school classrooms, it is not always presented with the meaningfulness it calls for. Teenagers deserve clear, straightforward information about taking care of themselves without any awkwardness, judgement, or assumptions. When schools take hygiene seriously and teach it in a manner that actually supports students, it helps foster healthier, more confident adolescents who understand their bodies and how to care for them.

Scrub-a-dub-dub!//Understanding the importance of practicing good hygiene is vital, especially for teenagers. But is information about the topic taught thoroughly enough in schools? (Photo by Audrey Hamatake)