Reconsider Hygienic
Many people believe that walking barefoot is unhygienic. In reality, feet that haven't been confined in shoes are more likely to be hygienic than both shoes and bare hands. How?
Unclean hands are actually far more likely to infect yourself or others with bacteria that cause diarrhea or viruses of communicable diseases like the flu because of how much your hands touch infected surfaces. Think about it: When's the last time you cleaned your computer mouse? The handle of the bathroom door? Did you clean the buttons of the ATM last time you used it?1 Conversely, any germs that come in contact with bare feet are usually wiped away with later steps and, really, we don't make a habit of putting our feet up to our mouths or touching others with them.
Common infections like toe fungus and athletes' foot require warm, moist environments to grow. Shoes provide the optimal conditions for this by acting like incubators! Going barefoot simply doesn't allow for these infections to flourish. What's more, all this nasty stuff we've been talking about stays inside your shoes when you take them off. That's not even where the grossness of shoes ends.
Shoes are far more likely to deposit nasty things on the floor indoors than bare feet. Most people shower daily, which includes cleaning their feet. Therefore, any nasties that are deposited on a floor will only be from that one day. In comparison, most people rarely clean the soles of their shoes. Because of this, shoes would deposit onto a floor the culmination of stuff picked up over the last several days, weeks, months or years.
All of that considered, we'll take the hygiene of bare feet over shoes any day. (And don't forget to wash your hands.)
1. "Report: ATMs as Dirty as Public Toilets," TIME, Jan. 13, 2011 (Link)
