Personal Hygiene: Training Pack for a Member of Staff - Essay Example

Training Pack for a Member of Staff Personal Hygiene Prior to discussing about aspects of personal hygiene, it is necessary to understand the term ‘hygiene’. The word ‘hygiene’ has been derived from the Greek word “hygies” which means “healthy, sound” (Jean, n.d.). Basically it refers to the practice related with ensuring cleanliness and good health. Hygiene can be of two types, good and bad. Good hygiene keep protected from the germs and other things that can hurt the human body where as the bad hygiene allows those things to affect the body (Ray, 2009). There are three parts of hygiene those are interlinked. Personal hygiene is the part of it. Apart from it other two components are environmental hygiene and food hygiene (National Environment Agency, 2006). Personal hygiene refers to taking care of one’s own body. It includes keeping body clean, which leads to staying healthy. In simple words, it can be defined as the regular routine personal care with washing and grooming. It focuses care of hair, skin, oral, face, hands, nail, feet and ears. The newly recruited employees should take care of his/her hygiene factors as the customers are aware of food and health which further deals with the personal hygiene factors too. Healthy Skin: For keeping one’s skin healthy, it is necessary to use healthy skin shop and water. It has been recommended by the experts to have bath twice a day especially in the tropical areas and at least once in arctic region. Even after the activities like running, walking, jogging and other sports activity, it is advised to take bath. One relevant issue in this regard is Acne. It is basically a skin condition which appears as bumps. It may be blackheads, red bumps, whiteheads and others. The two most common problems can be discussed here namely “Whitehead” and “blackhead”. “Whitehead” is created when oil from the oil glands mix up with the dead cells and plug up the hair follicles in the skin. A “blackhead” is created when the air touches the plug and the plug turns black (Jean, n.d.). 80% of the adolescents have been affected by the problems of acne. Uncleanliness is not the only issue as increased hormone is the important factor. People must stay cautious on contamination in public places. The remedies would comprise gentle washing with non-oiled soap and face cloth twice a day, trying to avoid moisturizers and consulting with dermatologists for severe acne. Oral Hygiene: Causative factor of the dental problems can be prevented through oral hygiene. Poor oral hygiene allows the accretion of acid producing bacteria on the surface of the teeth. Acid demineralizes the tooth enamel causing tooth decay (cavities). Gum disease can be also caused because of the dental plaque which can infect and invade the gums. The ultimate effect of poor oral hygiene can be loss of one or more teeth (Ray, 2009). To avoid the tooth decay and dental hygiene one needs to take care of the daily dental hygiene routine. It should be consisted of 2-4 minute brushing and flossing and keep in contact with a dentist at least for every six months. Body Odor: There are various reasons of body odor. Basically, mixing of perspiration along with bacteria creates body odor. Body odor can occur because of poor diets and also for some specific foods like onions, fish etc. The way of getting rid of this problem can be to change cloth daily, take daily bath or showers with soap, use of antiperspirants and scrub and to maintain a healthy diet. Care of Finger and Toe Nails: Nails should be filed in one direction. Especially toe-nails should be cut straight across. By avoiding tight shoes and very high heels, ingrown toenails can be avoided (Jean, n.d.). Hand Washing: Hand washing can prevent many of the illness such as Swine Flu, Meningitis, Hepatitis A and many others infectious dieses. Hair Problem: To avoid hair problems one should brush hair and stimulate hair and scalp. Brush should be from roots tip for spreading the oils to the whole length of hair. To avoid the dandruff, proper use of shampoo is necessary. It refers to shampoo as per the nature of the hair. Food Safety Basically all restaurants usually follow proper food safety regulations. One of the major responsibilities of restaurants is to keep its customer away from sickness with regard to food poisoning. The employees of restaurants have to understand that whenever a customer walks into the restaurant, he is making an unspoken accord with the management that he will pay for the food along with the service comes with it. All the employees should give their best to meet this implied condition. Here, the onus lies upon the restaurant to keep its product safe to eat (Food Safety and You, n.d.). Each and every food business has to take care of the affect of food hygiene legislation. The new legislation had been introduced in January, 2006 in UK. This legislation is dependent on the size of the business (Food Standards Agency, 2010). Employees should be conversant with the process. According the food safety process, the employees have to undertake few processes. Those are as follows: Risk Assessment: It should be consisted of hazard characterization, hazard identification, exposure assessment and risk characterization. Risk Communication: In this part, opinions and information should be exchanged among the key stakeholders. Risk Management: This process refers to the weighing policy of the alternatives but in consultation with the interested parties. Official Control: The last part is that of official control, it means monitoring process and products along with inspecting the establishment (Author Stream, 2010). While discussing food safety, it is important to discuss the factors that contribute to the food poisoning outbreaks especially in last two decades. Poor Personal Hygiene - 9% Inadequate Cooking- 27% Temperature Control- 20% Unsafe Food Source- 19% Contaminated Equipment- 19% Others -6% (Queensland, 2004). Foods can be handled properly through good personal hygiene care and especially by taking care of the hands as it is such a body part that has been used for almost all kind of daily activities and are contaminated very fast. So the employees have to be careful to wash their hands and clean nail and fingers frequently. Even they have to dry their hands too. They should not use their own cloth to wipe their hands and should use gloves while using raw foods and should change it as per requirement. Whenever the chef will get in to the kitchen he should wash his hands. Apart from personal hygiene, there are various other things to be considered. The area where the food has been preserved and kept should be free form pests and animals but pesticides also can not be used. It has to be ensured that none of the sick employees will cook the food but they can be allowed to do other official jobs. The chef should keep the raw meats, seafood and poultry separated from the cocked food. Proper refrigeration and temperature in the food storage should be maintained. Food should be protected by placing it in covered containers or with plastic wrapped cover. While serving food, equipments should be used instead of hands. The employees of the restaurants should wear clean cloths and apron while preparing food and serving the same. The most important matter is that the food should be preserved as per the required temperature not more or less than that as it is subject to growing bacteria (Queensland Health, 2004). Healthy Eating Implementation Strategy Basically the human body structure and human health are depended upon what we eat and what we do. Therefore, healthy eating is a must. It refers to the balanced diet. Healthy eating can be described as a process of eating variety of nutritious food with minimum sugar, fat and oils in it; and to have more fruits and vegetables and others. Most of the health conscious people try to maintain this habit and with the passing of time, number of these kinds of people has increased throughout the world. It sets alarm for the food industry to bring changes in the concept of traditional food items. Therefore, it is high time to implement new healthy eating strategy. The framework of implementing this strategy can be described through various attributes. Firstly, the vision of the project should be to provide a healthy food and environment to the customers. The objective and goal of implementing this strategy is that the foods should be of improved quality, nutritious, hygienic and of balanced calories. From the previous records, the new employees will be able to determine the taste and preference of their existing customers and from that trend they can build up a new set of choices for the customers with combining new and old menus. For implanting this strategy, at first management need to frame a proper time line and subsequently they need to implement the strategy (Ministry of Health, 2004). References Author Stream, 2010. EU Food Safety Process. International Food Safety. [Online] Available at: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Renzo-66273-food-safety-International-Purpose-Sanitary-Phytosanitary-SPS-Regulation-Agreements-agre-as-News-Reports-ppt-powerpoint/ [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Food Standards Agency, 2010. Hygiene Legislation. Safer Food, Better Business. [Online] Available at: http://www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/hygleg/ [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Food Safety and You, n.d. What Food Safety Warnings Should You Look For in a Restaurant? Food Safety Restaurant. [Online] Available at: http://www.food-safety-and-you.com/FoodSafetyRestaurant.html [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Jean, No Date. Hygiene. From Head to Toe. [Online] Available at: http://www.google.co.in/url?url=http://www.tcoek12.org/tcoeforms/health/Hygiene.ppt&rct=j&sa=U&ei=zad0TPeMKaHauAOMhPWhDg&ved=0CCIQFjAC&sig2=rw2kPxVFOvQadpuvnTuplg&q=personal+hygiene+ppt&usg=AFQjCNFB1U1yclDvMJItZvn5FGrjKuiiKA&cad=rja [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Ministry of Health, 2004. Healthy Eating – Heathy Action. Implementation Plan. [Online] Available at: http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/0/CD182E2C03925C09CC256EBD0016CF4B/$File/healthyeatinghealthyactionimplementationplan.pdf [Accessed August 27, 2010]. National Environment Agency, 2006. Personal Hygiene. Good Hygiene Practices. [Online] Available at: http://www.childcarelink.gov.sg/ccls/attachments/Good%20Hygiene%20Practices.pdf [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Queensland Health, 2004. Food Safety Matters. Factors Contributing To Food Poisoning Outbreaks. [Online] Available at: http://www.google.co.in/url?q=http://www.health.qld.gov.au/foodsafetymatters/documents/21863.ppt&sa=U&ei=PnB3TKT1Cpq8ugOBmvCiDg&ved=0CB0QFjAB&sig2=3jup5-7vrGYijA_L_2jySQ&usg=AFQjCNG1UXd_17M7pl0UBKqIdsAMsuHBGg [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Ray, S., 2009. Personal Hygiene. Presentation Transcript. [Online] Available at: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/aSGuest23469-222612-personal-hygiene-education-ppt-powerpoint/ [Accessed August 27, 2010]. Bibliography Ballard, C. Personal Hygiene. Blackbirch Press, 2004. Egendorf, L. K. Food Safety. Greenhaven Press, 2000. Wheelock, V. Implementing Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Eating. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 1997. Read More