What Happens To Your Body If You Swallow Pool Water

"All day I've faced a barren / waste without the taste of water, cool water." So wrote Marty Robbins, and so sang the Sons of the Pioneers (and about a jillion others), and while not many of us face the difficulty of being stranded in the desert without water (thank goodness) there's no question but that when the weather heats up, wherever you are, the idea of a body of water for dipping, splashing, even immersing becomes very very attractive.

Oceans, lakes, even streams and rivers have their own advantages (and dangers), but the public pool, especially for children, is a classic way to beat the heat. Jumping, splashing, diving (but no running, please) — and it's all perfectly safe, because we have better living through chemistry; specifically and most commonly, the addition of chlorine to pool water. However, too much coupled with too much exposure will result in kind of a greenish tinge to skin and hair. So why use it?

The theory is the same as that of chlorine in civic drinking water: keep the good, eliminate the bad, specifically waterborne bacteria and viruses. And no matter how often authorities request people to rinse off before they hit the water (which seems like coals to Newcastle for an eight-year-old in July), WebMD reports that people have an average of .14 grams of feces on their bottoms, which in turn will end up in the water of a public pool.