Have you ever considered that what you put inside your body can affect how the outside of your body smells? What you eat can have an effect on your body odor and may even affect peoples' response to your smell. Additionally, your scent can also tell a lot about your health, especially in relation to your underarms.
People sweat for several reasons. Whether it is due to stress, heat, anxiety, exercise, fear, anger or a fever, you will still have the same sweat response. While age and overall health can also impact your sweat, with these other factors, some people naturally sweat more than others. The skin has been studied to measure levels of carotenoids, which are the naturally occurring antioxidant pigments, to gauge a person's produce intake.
According to the original theory, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables containing potent carotenoids will positively affect your scent. With over 700 types of natural carotenoids, you are likely to have about 10 or 20 different kinds of carotenoids in your bloodstream at any given time.
One particular study included a food frequency survey. It concluded that men typically emit a more pleasant-smelling odor when they eat more fruits and vegetables as opposed to carbohydrates. Their sweat smells were evaluated by females.
In terms of visual attraction, yellower, more carotenoid rich-skin in this study was generally found to be more attractive. While many people think that their diet will only affect their breath, this study showed that it also definitely does affect body odor.
Some people tend to avoid eating onions or garlic because they don't want their breath to smell. However, body odor is created when our skin's bacteria metabolize the contents of our sweat glands.
Additionally, the smell of a person's sweat can convey a person's level of health and immune fitness, and can even have an impact on someone's ability to attract a mate. Odor has been known to be an important component of attractiveness for a while, especially for women. Historically, women have been more attracted to the natural scent of men who eat more vegetables than carbohydrates.
Furthermore, men who admitted to enjoying pasta, potatoes, and bread in the study had the strongest and least pleasant-smelling sweat of all, even when compared to a diet high in fat, eggs, meat, and tofu.
Consumption of fat, eggs, meat, and tofu was associated with pleasant-smelling sweat, actually. This was not the first test to have these results.
A 2006 study reported that women prefer the smell of vegetarian men compared to men who ate meat. The male subjects were separated into two groups, one group being meat eaters and the other vegetarian for two weeks. They were told to wear pads in their armpits to absorb their perspiration during the last day of their study. Thirty females who were assisting the study were then asked to assess the sweat samples for their attractiveness, intensity, and masculinity.
A month later, the same men repeated the study but switched their diets. The scientists were able to conclude that red meat consumption decreases the pleasantness of perceived body odor and the premise of the study remained the same when the men's diets were changed. In the featured study, meat intake did not affect how pleasant the women rated the sweat, although meat eaters were found to have more intense smelling sweat.
Body odor may be seen by strangers as a "psychosocial" stress indicator, which can possibly lead men to make poor assumptions regarding a woman's emotional state and then make further evaluations, such as judging a woman's competence.
Forty-four women gave the following sweat samples:
1) Untreated exercise sweat
2) Untreated stress sweat
3) Treated (with a commercial antiperspirant) stress sweat
The results showed that the odors that were obtained from stressed women could negatively influence one's judgment of their personality when it comes to warmth and competence from other women. A different group of mixed gender evaluators rated the women in the videos while smelling one of the sweat samples.
The women in the videos were rated as being under more stress by both men and women when they were smelling the untreated sweat. For men, the women in the videos appeared to be less confident, trustworthy and competent when smelling untreated sweat. Women's social judgments were not affected by smelling the pads.
Today, personal hygiene is important and common to keep up with. But a hundred years ago, body odor was normal. Blocking personal body odor first occurred in 1912 when a high school student tried to see if she could promote a liquid antiperspirant that her father created. The doctor made the invention to alleviate sweaty hands, which was an issue when he was trying to do surgery in the heat of summer.
This invention led to deodorant. Body odor wasn't considered something that should be repressed prior to this, so the response to this product was mixed. However, people figured they would give the deodorant a try, so while sales were not great at first, they quickly rose.
Now, the deodorant industry is booming. With the invention of synthetic fabric, body odor can have an even more intense smell. Polyester fabric has an increased tendency to absorb the smell of sweat compared to cotton T-shirts.
Sweating is a both a natural and beneficial bodily function, and blocking it with antiperspirant is not always healthy. Using an all-natural deodorant with equal amounts of baking soda, coconut oil and organic cornstarch is also effective.
