Why does lice seem to vanish from the Earth as soon as everyone becomes like 12 years old?
In: Biology
There are lice, just they are far less common.
The main reason for this is just down to the lifestyles we live. Children tend to be physically closer to their peers, spending a lot of time in close proximity with school friends and similar, and lacking an adult sense of personal space will be a lot closer during that time.
Children are also more likely to be lax on things like personal hygiene, which will provide a better home for lice than in those who take a lot of care over their appearance and hair washing.
Also as children they are perhaps not quite so quick to call foul (or when they do, be believed) so that am itchy head caused by lice will not be caught so quickly, and will be allowed more chance to breed and get worse, and transfer to friends and others in close proximity.
Adults in the other hand trend to be a bit more solitary – places like offices and other meeting places won’t include wrote the same level of physical contact, and that level of closeness will generally be restricted to partners, so there just isn’t the same level of transmission as with children.
Adults are also slightly more aware of their bodies and what causes symptoms like itchy scalps, so will investigate and look to treatment quicker too.
If a child catches lice however, it is fairly common for them to also transfer to the parents at the same time.
Something could also be said about how public the problem is made – if a child catches lice, that is typically something that their immediate peer group/school classes will be notified of to allows for the checking and treatment of others. Adults will often be much more reserved and concerned about personal appearance, so will be quite likely to keep an issue like lice quiet and not make it public knowledge, so we hear about it less in adults.
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