English Every Day: Health, Hygiene & Shower

Your Daily English Programme #41: What If You Never Showered? (Listening B1-B2)

Welcome to Tuesday's lesson on Engramme: Your Free Daily English Programme. Today, We'll be discussing hygiene.

Think Before You Listen

- How often should we shower? Is it different for different people?

- How often do you actually shower?

- What would happen if you never showered?

(Type your answers and ideas in the comments' section below ;)

Watch and Listen

Watch the Video: What are the narrator's answers to questions 1 & 3 above?

Let's Practice

Look at This List of Words: Can you match each word to its definition?

skin cells	itchy	scratch	body odor
infection	stink	dandruff	immune system

1. If your socks _______, that means they give out a strong, unpleasant smell.

2. ______  ______ is the unpleasant smell of a person's body, also called BO.

3. ______  ______ are the tiny parts of your skin that cover and protect the muscles and bones beneath them.

4. If part of your body is ______, it hurts a bit, so you try and rub your fingers or nails against it to make it go away.

5. _________ is small white pieces of dead skin in a person's hair.

6. If you _______ part of your body, you rub your fingernails against it to make an irritating pain (an itch) go away.

7. An ________ is a disease that is caused by bacteria or a virus.

8. The body's _______  ________ is the network of cells, organs and tissues that work together to defend the body against diseases and infections.

(see answers in the first comment)

Watch the Video Again: Can you supply the missing words in the transcript below?

(mouse over the dark blue words in the text to see their meaning)

Hey there and welcome to Life Noggin! So you probably shower. At least I hope so! And you probably do it to keep clean, right? It seems like a ________ thing to do. But have you ever wondered what would happen if you never showered? Well, let’s start with the basics: you would, if I’m being honest, _______! I’m sorry to say it, but after a while without washing, you’ll start to develop quite an odor. Soap and water in a shower or bath work to rid your body of bacteria and dead ______  _____, so these things start to pile up when you stop cleaning yourself. According to dermatology professor Dr. Cameron Rokhsar, among the pile of dead cells that would accumulate on top of your skin are some proteins with a sugary coating, such as sialomucin. Lots of bacteria love to consume sugar, and when they digest sugary proteins like sialomucin, they produce what we call ______  ______. So less showering means more stench. But what kind of effects would it have on your health? Well, the results don’t look too good there either. For starters, dirty skin means ______ skin. Dandruff builds up, your skin is coated in oil and the dirt that sticks to it, and you start scratching. Scratching an irritating itch can feel great, but if you scratch too much you can hurt yourself, even breaking through your skin. On a related note, never bathing can put you at a higher risk for _________. If you were to get a cut or a scratch (perhaps because of all that excessive itchiness) and your skin was covered in all sorts of extra bacteria, those bacteria might find their way inside your wound and eventually lead to a soft tissue infection. You would also become more prone to a whole host of other health _______, from acne and pus to fungus between your toes, or even intertrigo, a painful combination of yeast and inflammation in your groin. This all sounds kind of scary and gross, right? It might make you feel like you need to scrub yourself clean right this second. But what if I told you it’s possible to shower too much? In fact, a lot of us are guilty of it. Remember when I mentioned that _______ skin can increase your risk of infection? Well, so can dry skin. And you know what can cause dry skin? That’s right. Showers! Washing your skin might also remove some of the important bacteria that help your ________  _______. Some doctors even say that when you shower, you should only apply soap to the parts of your body that typically smell—such as your armpits, groin, and butt. Sure, frequent showers reduce your body odor, but in terms of your health, one or two showers a week is likely to be enough. So, as is true of many things in life, showers are good in moderation. Showering twice a day or twice a year can both have serious consequences on your health and _____-______. So keep clean, but not too clean.

(see the first comment for the answers)

Over to You

Have you ever had an illness or an infection because you didn't take enough care of yourself? What did you do to recover? (Let us know in the comments below)

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