Just the other day, the neurotic, over-informed and consequently, over-protective parent in me kicked into full gear while our kids were playing in the snow. As most parents know, once your child gets to playing in the white stuff, their first impulse is to eat it.

Now I realize that consuming snow is a part of every New Englander’s childhood, and I never stop my kids from devouring the stuff, not that I could if I tried, but it still makes me cringe a little to see your kids eating stuff off the ground, where my dirty shoes, and the dirty shoes of countless other people, have trodden, not to mention assorted varieties of wildlife.

Then again, maybe I just need to lighten up (actually, that’s a given), not only for the sake of my own sanity and that of my kids, but for their health and well being. In fact, there are many experts out there who would agree.

While I’m not about to eliminate the good habit of washing our hands before every meal, it is interesting to consider that most of us didn’t grow up in such a sanitary world. Not by a long shot.

It is especially intriguing when you consider the rash of ailments that are more prevalent today, particularly the ones that involve our immune system like allergies and auto-immune disorders like Crohns’s disease and asthma. In fact, there is a growing movement that links the rise of these disorders directly to an upbringing that is, plainly put, too clean and sanitary.

The hygiene hypothesis, as it has come to be known, first came to light in 1989 when a an article published in the BMJ suggested that growing up in an environment of hyper-cleanliness might actually increase our predisposition to illness, especially ones pertaining to our immune system.

The belief is that it all boils down to exposure, or in this case, lack thereof. The body’s immune system is like a blank slate, and needs to properly “taught” and “informed.”  The process of exposing the naïve immune system of a baby to pathogens serves to bolster it’s hardiness, if you will, much like immunizations do, or exposure to dirt and disease (for a related article, see Paul Michael’s piece on Chicken Pox Parties).

By denying the body these encounters, we may very well be setting ourselves up for problems later in life. In fact, in a recent article in the New York Times, there is even a suggestion by some experts that we go to far as to let our kids eat dirt and contract worms from our pets, which they point out in most instances are harmless.

While this may not be an acceptable option for some of us, including myself, in the end, the take home message is simple-maybe we should lighten up with the whole antibacterial hysteria. When you really get down to it, it has gotten a bit out of hand, and marketers, with the help of the media, have seized the opportunity to capitalize on our fears by offering a whole slew of germicidal products, when in fact your basic hand soap will more than suffice.

The reality is, bacteria are all around us, and without them, life itself would be impossible. Furthermore, there are negative consequences to diligently destroying all the bacteria in our lives, for many are responsible for important bodily functions, like digestion, not to mention the inhibition of such undesirable things as yeast and fungus.

So don’t get all worked up if your kids are not the epitome of cleanliness. Childhood, as we all know, is messy, and it’s nearly impossible to prevent them from putting a bit of that mess into their mouths.

And let them eat a little dirt, or in this case, snow. Unless of course it’s yellow snow, since we know where that comes from.

Then again, maybe I’m being too over-protective.