Final answer:
Eating, drinking, and other common activities can expose you to microbes leading to health risks, mainly through ingestion or direct contact. Good hygiene, notably handwashing, is critical in preventing the spread of microbes and maintaining health.
Step-by-step explanation:
Eating, drinking, smoking, applying cosmetics or lip balm, and handling contact lenses are activities that can expose individuals to various health risks, primarily due to the transmission of microbes. When you touch surfaces like doorknobs or money and then touch your face, you risk transferring microbes to your mouth, nose, or eyes.
These microbes can be harmful if they enter your body. Activities such as smoking or eating can introduce chemicals or microbes that have settled on surfaces into your system through ingestion, which could potentially lead to illness.
Also, applying cosmetics or lip balm could result in skin or eye contact with chemical contaminants, while handling contact lenses carries the risk of altering the natural microbiota of the conjunctiva, potentially contributing to eye disease.
Furthermore, contact with saliva or lesions from an infected person can transmit illnesses, direct eye contact with discharge from herpes lesions can cause infection, and touching animals requires caution due to the possibility of zoonotic disease transmission.
To minimize these risks, good hygiene practices, such as regular handwashing, are essential. Handwashing is highly effective in preventing the spread of contagious illnesses since it removes microbes that can cause infections.
Such safety precautions are especially crucial for professionals at higher risk, such as microbiologists, dentists, and phlebotomists.