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Almost 50% of people don't change their underwear daily
18 November 2019, 18:25
A survey conducted by Tommy John revealed that almost half of adults do not change their underwear every day, with some even admitting to wearing the same knickers for 7 days.
If I had to guess at the beginning of 2019 what the year would become famous for, I definitely wouldn't have thought it would be people airing out their hygienic shortcomings. First, we had people openly admitting that they do not wash their legs (then what do ya'll do in the shower, pray tell?!), then some people were happy to reveal that they don't even shower after swimming. Now, an illuminating hygiene-related study has us side-eying just about everyone.
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Underwear retailer Tommy John conducted a survey of 1,000 Americans and found that nearly half of respondents didn't change their underwear daily. 45% of those asked admitted that they could wear the same pair of underwear for two days.
Meanwhile, 13% of respondents copped to wearing the same underwear for one calendar week. That's seven days, folks.
In case you thought the results revealed anything about one sex being more hygienic than the other, Tommy John is here to disabuse you of that notion. The retailer told The Mail Online: "These results were split fairly evenly between men and women, which throws any theories out the window that women are more hygiene-conscious than men, or vice versa."
That said, men were apparently 2.5 times more likely to wear their undies for a week straight, according to the survey.
Um, okay. Well, admittedly, that's a lot of information to process!
Now, in terms of health, is there any chance of folks being harmed by not changing their underpants as regularly as social norms dictate?
Clinical professor of pathology and microbiology, Dr. Philip Tierno, told TODAY that "generally speaking, it’s not going to hurt you as much as your hygiene may hurt your reputation".
Tierno continued: "Two days would probably be very little detection unless you grossly contaminate your underwear. If you talk about a week or two, now we’re getting into robust growth of organisms and clearly there will be odour."
So, this behaviour is definitely not the wave but it probably won't kill you, I guess.
In their study, Tommy John recommends folks swap out their underwear every six months and also warn that older pairs can accumulate microorganisms that lead to yeast infections and UTIs. The more you know!