Poor body odour sags confidence levels among youth: Survey
Mumbai | Sunday, Nov 29 2009 IST
 

People with body odour are prone to less confidence levels which ultimately affects their personal and social relationships, a nationwide survey revealed.

Feeling of shame, embarrassment, low self esteem, isolation, frustration, anxiety and depression are extremely common where body odour is present, a recent survey conducted by the Centre for Health and Hygiene has said. In the survey, covering people in the age bracket of 22-35 years of males and females in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore, body odour has emerged as the biggest cause for social embarrassment and low confidence level amongst respondents. The survey highlighted the growing importance of personal hygiene and its impact on personal interaction across all respondents (57 per cent of the respondents were males and 43 per cent 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 per cent of the respondents say that overall cleanliness is the most important factor for personal hygiene, while 49 per cent respondents say that body odour 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. An increasing number of people are now becoming aware of the fact that ''smelling good'' leads to success. About 42 per cent respondents say that foul body odour is a personal stigma and should be avoided at all cost. The survey report indicated that a large number of people believe in maintaining good personal hygiene and detest body odour.

Though body odour is reacted to very strongly 22 per cent say they will hold poor opinion about the person, 16 per cent say that they will avoid the person and only eight per cent say that they will let the person know about smelling foul. But in terms of prevention, 55 per cent of the respondents resort to taking bath daily and maintaining overall personal hygiene whereas 45 per cent resort to using deodorants.

The survey revealed that while 43 of the respondents attribute body odour to climate, some of them attribute it to spicy food, stress, and hormonal imbalance and heredity factors.

-- (UNI) -- 29BY7.xml

 

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