Health & Fitness
Selfie…#1 New Word of The Year
#1 way to get lice is head to head contact. What do you do when you take a pic with someone? Can a Selfie increase the risk of head lice? No worries if you learn how to do a combing head check.
What happens when you take a selfie? You get in close and pose for a picture taken by your self of your self. Your range is only as long as the length of your arm, so that doesn’t leave much room to fit a lot in the frame of the picture. If you were taking a selfie with a friend you would probably have to get pretty close together to take a good photo. By good I mean one that is worthy of posting on Facebook, Instagram, or twitter. Due to social media the Oxford Dictionaries has honored the word selfie as becoming the #1 new word of the year in 2013.
Number one Way to Get Lice? Head to Head Contact
The number one way to get head lice is head to head contact. Over 90% of all lice cases are contracted by hair touching hair or heads touching heads. Believe it or not, the chances of getting lice from our friends and family have increased because of the famous act of putting heads together and taking a selfie.
Not everyone has lice so you are not going to get lice every time your head touches someone else’s head. Lice do not spontaneously generate from someone else’s hair touching your hair but if that someone has an egg-laying louse (one female fertile lice bug) and your heads touch, then you can get lice. By taking selfies you can increase your chances of getting lice.
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I love a good selfie and although the word selfie is on record as first being used in 2002 I have been taking Selfies for as long as I can remember. I called them chin pictures because often they would make one look like they had several unwanted chins when taken from the wrong angle. We used to have to wait to get film developed before we could see if any of the pictures were worth showing anyone. So we have been taking selfies for a long before the word became so popular that it earned the right to be in the Oxford Dictionaries. Knowing that the word “lice” has been around for thousands of years, take all the selfies you want. Post them proudly and share them with all your friends and family. The Center for Lice Control recommends you make sure you are doing weekly combing head checks for your elementary school kids who are most at risk for head lice. Protect your head to stop the spread!
