One in two Americans wears the same pair of underwear for days at a time. do you do Here’s how often you should change your underwear and what happens if you don’t.
Wearing clean underwear every day is one of the first hygiene rules most of us learn from childhood, like brushing our teeth before bed and not kissing a dog on the lips. A recent survey of more than 2,000 Americans found that nearly half of adults admitted to wearing their underwear for two days or more. Not only did 45% of people surveyed by the underwear company Tommy John say they didn’t change their underwear every day, but 13% said they wore the same one for a week or more. (No word on whether they were turned inside out.) Maybe they don’t know the reason we wear underwear.
“I must have played one boxer for at least three days; “It’s easier, less laundry, and honestly, I just forget about it,” said Kellen, a 21-year-old college student whose mother declined to identify her in case she was reading.
This may be a concern because she admits to putting the same dirty underwear back on after a shower. “I left them with my jeans on, so all I had to do was go back in and pull them up and I was out!”
Well, there’s a case for convenience and maybe the environment, but wearing dirty underwear shouldn’t be a concern for your health, says Marisa Garshick, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and clinical assistant at MDCS Dermatology Center. Professor of Dermatology at New York Presbyterian-Cornell.
