Anatomy

Good personal hygiene involves keeping all parts of the external body clean and healthy. It is important for maintaining both physical and mental health.

Different types of personal hygiene are dental, handwashing, body, and nails. 

Dental:

Brush your teeth at least twice a day. Before breakfast and before bed. This can prevent gum disease, cavities, and bad breath.

Handwashing: 

Best way to avoid spreading communicable diseases. The CDC recommends washing your hands at these times…

• before, during, and after preparing food
• before eating food
• before and after looking after anyone who is sick
• before and after treating a cut or wound
• after going to the bathroom
• after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
• after touching dirty surfaces or objects
• after handling pets or pet-related items

Body: 

When bacteria breaks down sweat, the process creates a smell or body odor. Washing your body daily using soap and water washes off the bacteria, and oil as well as preventing skin irritation. Use shampoo in your hair at least once a week. A good way to keep smelling good is to wear deodorant. The only difference between men’s and women’s deodorant is just the smells, but these smells can be used by anyone.

Nails: 

Under the nails collect lots of dirt which is why it is important to keep them well taken care of and clean. Use sanitary tools (nail file, nail clippers) to trim and maintain your nails. 

Menstrual and Genitile Hygiene:

Changing sanitary products regularly and washing your hands before and after changing tampons, pads, or any other sanitary products is important. Pads are rectangles of absorbent material that attach to the inside of a person's underwear to catch menstrual blood. Pads are usually divided into two main categories: thick and thin. Both provide protection, but choosing between the two is just a matter of preference and/or blood flow size. Thick pads, also referred to as "maxi", are made of thick absorbent cushion and provide maximum comfort. There are also disposable pads that have a sticky strip along the bottom. These are one-and-done. Then, there are reusable pads that you wash after every use. A tampon is a plug of soft material inserted into the vagina to absorb menstrual blood. Smaller-size tampons are for lighter flow. It matters because the safest way to use tampons is to always use the lowest absorbency that will manage your flow. The sizes of tampons are light, regular, super, super plus, and ultra-absorbencies. You should also ask a trusted adult or doctor about many other options, such as a menstrual cup. As vaginas are self-cleaning, using soap to clean the vagina can cause an imbalance of its natural bacteria and lead to infections. The vulva (the external part of the vagina) should only need cleaning once a day using mild soap and water. People with an uncircumcised penis can clean it by gently pulling back the foreskin and washing underneath it with warm water or soap.

Negative Effects of Poor Personal Hygiene: 

There are also many health implications of having poor personal hygiene, with the CDC Trusted Source listing the following as hygiene-related diseases:

• Athlete’s foot: a fungal infection affecting the skin between the toes. 
• Body lice: body lice are tiny insects, about the size of a sesame seed. Body lice live in your clothing and bedding and travel to your skin several times a day to feed on blood.
• Chronic diarrhea: three or more loose stools daily for at least four weeks.
• Tooth decay: the decay of the outer surface of a tooth as a result of bacterial action.
• Head lice: a louse (singular lice) that infests the scalp and hair of the human head and is especially common among school children.
• Hot tub rash: If contaminated water stays on someone's skin for a long time, it can cause a rashes.
• Pinworms: pinworms are white, parasitic worms that can live in the large intestine of humans.
• Pubic lice:  crab louse or pubic louse is located in the pubic areas. It is an insect that is an obligate ectoparasite of humans, feeding exclusively on blood.
• Scabies: a contagious skin disease marked by itching and small raised red spots, caused by the itch mite.
• Ringworm: a contagious itching skin disease occurring in small circular patches, caused by any of a number of fungi and affecting chiefly the scalp or the feet. 

Poor personal hygiene can also affect the workplace. Companies may desire to hire someone with better personal care/hygiene.  

Creating a Personal Hygiene Routine:

A good way to remember to take showers, wash your hands, cut your nails, or brush your teeth is by setting reminders. This could be on your phone in the reminder app or putting a note on your lock screen. You can also put sticky notes on places that will remind you to take care of your body.

Making habits takes a lot of practice. A common saying, "practice makes perfect," can be helpful in creating good habits to have good personal hygiene. Keep practicing good personal habits, and don’t give up.  

Benefits of Keeping Up With Personal Hygiene:

1. Disease Prevention

Diseases and illnesses are commonly spread through viruses and bacteria. Your hands come in contact with bacteria multiple times a day. Failing to wash your hands and body can cause the bacteria to multiply, increasing the risk of infection and health problems. Therefore, having good personal hygiene lowers the risk of illnesses, diseases, and infections.

2. Social and Professional Acceptance

Spending time with those who have poor personal hygiene can be unpleasant due to the factors of body odor, bad breath, and dirty appearance. This can have an impact on your social life and even business relationships. Many employers urge or require employees to practice good hygiene and tend to hire people who look clean and as though they practice healthy hygiene habits. Poor personal hygiene is also a factor of getting bullied. In fact, it is one of the top reasons a child gets bullied. Keeping up with your hygiene will give you a better chance of a social life, job opportunities, and relationships.

 3. Higher Confidence and Self Esteem

Poor hygiene can affect your mood, your interactions with others, and the way you feel about yourself. Being clean and well-groomed can help you feel more confident and comfortable both physically and mentally. Good hygiene can boost your confidence and self-esteem and make you seem more positive and attractive to others. Good hygiene can indirectly boost your success at work, in the gym, and in scenarios that require you to be at your very best.

4. Pain Prevention 

Good hygiene can help you stay in good overall health so you can avoid experiencing pain caused by certain medical conditions. Failing to brush and floss teeth regularly increases the risk for gum disease, which causes chronic pain and tooth loss in its advanced stages. Staying in wet, sweaty socks for hours after exercising increases the risk for an athlete's foot, which can lead to a fungal nail infection that causes pain and inflammation under the nails. Overall, keeping up with your hygiene will help decrease the risk of pain.  

The external parts of female sexual anatomy:  

The vulva is the part of the female genitals on the outside of the body. It includes the labia, clitoris, vaginal opening, and the opening to the urethra. Many people call this area the “vagina,” but they're really talking about the vulva. Vaginas are actually only one part of the vulva. 

The labia are folds of skin around the vaginal opening. The labia majora (outer lips) are usually fleshy and covered with pubic hair. The labia minora (inner lips) are inside the outer lips. They begin at your clitoris and end under the opening to the vagina.

The tip of the clitoris is located at the top of the vulva, where the inner lips meet. Everyone’s clitoris is a different size. It can be about as small as a pea or as big as a thumb. The tip of the clitoris is covered by the clitoral hood. This is just the beginning of the clitoris though. It extends inside the body, back and down on both sides of the vagina. 

The internal parts of female sexual anatomy:

The vagina is a tube that connects the vulva with the cervix and uterus. It’s what babies and menstrual blood leave the body through. 

The cervix divides your vagina and uterus, located right between the two. It looks like a donut with a hole in the middle. This hole connects the uterus and your vagina.

The uterus is a pear-shaped muscular organ about the size of a small fist. It’s sometimes called the womb because it’s where a fetus grows during pregnancy. ​​

The fallopian tubes are 2 narrow tubes. They carry eggs from the ovaries to your uterus.

The fimbriae look like tiny fingers at the end of each fallopian tube. When the ovary releases an egg, they sweep it into the fallopian tube.

The ovaries store the eggs. They also produce hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. These hormones control things like your period and pregnancy. During puberty, the ovaries start to release an egg each month. They do so until menopause. Sometimes the ovaries release more than one egg.

The Bartholin's glands are near the vaginal opening. They release fluid that lubricates the vagina.

The Skene’s glands are on either side of the urethral opening. They release fluid during female ejaculation. They’re also called paraurethral glands or female prostate glands.

The hymen is the thin, fleshy tissue that stretches across part of the opening to the vagina. Hymens vary a lot in how much of the vaginal opening they cover. 

Other than the reproductive organs there are many differences when it comes to female and male anatomy, most of the arranges come during puberty.  

Female puberty:

In most cases, the first parts of female puberty are when they begin developing breasts and their nipples get more sensitive. Some worry about the size or the shape of their breasts, but it is important to remember that breasts and nipples come in all shapes and sizes, and there is no right way for them to be. 

Also, during female puberty, the pelvic region begins to become wider, and the thighs become rounder. They may gain weight as a result of this, but this is more than normal. This is the result of the body moving fat proportions around the body so the body can bear the stresses of pregnancy later in life. Looking at other females in your genetic line is a good guide to see what you might look like in the future. 

Other than that, females also develop pubic hair under the arms, on their legs and in the pubic area. There are no health reasons to shave the hair, it is an individual choice, avoid sharing razors because that can spread STIs. 

Besides reproductive differences, there are a lot of physical differences between the two as well. Usually, men are taller and weigh more than women. Men are typically more muscular as well, as males tend to convert more of their calories into muscle mass, as opposed to the fat deposits that a lot of women’s calories are turned into. This leads to an average girl being 50-60% as strong as an average guy in the upper body, and 60-70% in the lower. Men also grow thicker, darker hair, or body hair on the face, chest, abdomen, and back, with thicker skin as well. A guy’s skeleton is more sturdy, dense, and rough than a girl’s, with a lot more waist in waist-to-hip ratio than hip.

Reproductively, biological men are a lot different than women. Males have external sex organs, compared to the internal uterus and vagina of women:

They have two testicles that produce sperm, the male counterpart of the female eggs. The testes are enveloped in the scrotum, a layer of smooth skin and muscle that protects them from harm. In front of the scrotums is the penis, which is made up of three parts: the root, the shaft, and the glans. There’s the root, which attaches the penis to the abdomen. Next, the shaft of the penis, shaped like a tube, is filled with sponge-like tissue that fills up with blood when you’re aroused; as it fills with blood, it becomes hard and erect, which allows for penetration during sex. Finally, there are the glans, which are the kind of cone-shaped end of the penis. It has a hole at the end of the urethra, the internal tube that carries urine from the bladder. It also releases semen, the male reproductive fluid. The glans are covered at birth with a loose layer of foreskin, but this is commonly removed via a surgery called circumcision.

Puberty:

Through adolescence, a guy’s body goes through a lot of changes. Their shoulders widen, they gain weight (usually in muscle) and grow taller. A lot of the more structural changes like these happen in growth spurts, usually from ages 12 to 15. Usually, puberty begins with the testicles growing bigger, as the hormones produced during puberty tell them to make more sperm, and the hormone testosterone, which largely drives the physical changes during adolescence. Testosterone also causes random erections, when blood flows to the penis and makes it stiff.

Hair grows above the penis (pubic hair) and body, or terminal hair all over, most notably in the armpits and on the face. Finally, males’ voice will usually deepen quite a bit through puberty, because vocal cords grow thicker and longer during adolescence.

The hormone testosterone fluctuates a LOT during puberty, and these rapid hormonal changes can cause emotional changes along with the physical ones. Be patient with yourself during puberty; emotions and feelings can run wild, but it’s important to remember that what’s happening to your body is totally natural, and everyone goes through it. Just try to go with the flow as best you can! 

During this time, it’s also a really good idea to regularly apply deodorant (1-2 times per day)! You might not smell yourself, but others might be able to. You can use whatever scents you want, as long as it’s comfortable for you and equally as important, comfortable for others. You should also probably use an antiperspirant. While deodorants act to cover up smells, antiperspirant works by blocking your sweat glands, helping to stop the stink before it even happens.