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Thursday, April 25, 2024
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| Article / Health / Skin | Post Comments |
Body odor emerges as a major deterrent for personal confidence and social mobility – Survey |
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| By : Shankar Shinde , Mumbai, India 24.11.2009 Mail Now | |
| 210-202, AAR PEE Centre, Gufic Compound, MIDC, Andheri East, Mumbai-400093 | |
Sounds strange! But it's true. In a survey conducted by Centre for Health and Hygiene amongst respondent in the age bracket of 22-35 years of males and females in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore Body Odor has emerged as the biggest cause for social embarrassment and low confidence level amongst respondents. Are your close friends not so close anymore? Do your colleagues avoid you? Do they seem to be keeping their distance from you? Do they ask things like "Can you smell that?" And do you answer, "Smell what?" If so, your friends and colleagues are trying to drop a hint: You have body odor. Don't run away and hide. (If you did run, the smell would just follow you.) Body odor can hang over you like a dark cloud. That is why you need to do something fast! Recent survey conducted by Centre for Health and Hygiene has shown that people with body odor are prone to less confidence levels which ultimately affect their personal and social relationships. Feeling of shame, embarrassment, low self esteem, isolation, frustration, anxiety and depression are extremely common where body odor is present. Siddharth Gupta a bright, young man is a smooth talker. He's good at his job and is always coming up with bright, innovative ideas. But in the office, whenever he passes by a colleague's cubicle or enters someone's cabin, those around him squirm uncomfortably, scrunching up their noses and holding their breath they’re just waiting for him to leave. Well there’s no surprise element the answer is- Siddharth exudes terrible body odor. Mrs. Kapoor, rich and affluent socialite runs from one beauty parlour to another trying desperately to get rid of her body odor but to no avail. When our survey team posed her the questionnaire related t personal hygiene, she shyly admitted to her low confidence and near recluse social status to her body odor. Now she uses a good bath soap and a good deodarant and has finally got freedom from body odor after our survey report suggested her the remedy Radha a young nice girl, highly professionally qualified and reasonably good looking lost out on a good match due to body odor .Nilesh her fiancée could not bear to be near her. He tried to focus more on her other qualities but in the end he decided that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life with someone with body odor The survey highlights the growing importance of personal hygiene and its impact on personal interaction across all respondents (57% of the respondents were males and 43% were females). Majority of the respondents say that more and more people are now becoming aware of the fact that ‘smelling good’ is as important as ‘looking good’. It adds to their overall confidence. 51% of the respondents say that overall cleanliness is the most important factor for personal hygiene while 49% respondents say that body odor is the single most determinant of individual personal hygiene. Reshma Kapoor, a recent management graduate from the IES Management Institute, agreed to avoiding body odor as the foremost challenge giving a perspective of the young generation. Dr. Atta Khatri of ZAF believes ‘that rising stress level and lack of healthy food and proper exercise also lead to body odour’ Health is wealth and Beauty is truly skin deep. In order to be beautifully healthy one has to be conscious of personal hygiene. The respondents to the survey by Centre for Health and Hygiene say that more and more people are now becoming aware of the fact that ‘smelling good’ leads to success. About 42% respondents say that foul body odor is a personal stigma and should be avoided at all cost The survey report indicates that a large number of people believe in maintaining good personal hygiene and detest body odor. Though body odor is reacted to very strongly 22% say they will hold poor opinion about the person, 16% say that they will avoid the person and only 8% say that they will let the person know about smelling foul. But in terms of prevention 55% of the respondents resort to taking bath daily and maintaining overall personal hygiene whereas 45% resort to using deodorants. While 43% of the respondents attribute body odor to climate, some of them attribute it to spicy food, stress, and hormonal imbalance and heredity factors. As regards measures taken to avoid body odor, Christabell Fernandes, a professional stylist from the entertainment industry believe “We constantly emphasis on using deodorants to maintain personal hygiene and also advocate using a good bath soap” |
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