Don't Let WebMD Dissuade You from Visiting Water Parks This Summer

September 4, 2015
WebMD: 10 Public Hot Spots for Germs

A water park crawling with 1,000 kids can have 22 pounds of poop floating around, says Michele Hlavsa, RN, chief of the CDC's Healthy Swimming Program.

Yeah, okay. Can have 22 pounds, sure. But isn't it, on average, probably closer to just 20 pounds?

Little kids can carry as much as 10 grams of leftover feces on their rear ends, she says.

They can carry 1/45th of a pound. However, the average leftover feces carrying child is probably closer to carrying just 1/50th of a pound. It would therefore take at least 13 of them to add up to a quarter-pounder.

They don't make a habit of washing off before jumping in, so all that poop just rinses off into the pool. It adds up, and chlorine doesn't kill everything.

Surely not every child. Some enter the water clean. Right? Are you with me on this? And chlorine kills some of it. Right? So why not treat the water glass as half full? Drink up and enjoy life!



Oh, come on! Not her again! I was trying to be optimistic! I really was!

First world problems that look a lot like third world problems, baby. That's what I'm talking about. Yikes!