What
Do You Think Causes Acne?
This
weekend I took some time to ask 100 people in downtown Portland
what they thought caused acne. Since Portland is such an enlightened
city with its envied public transportation system and environmentally
friendly propensity, I thought surely the majority of Portlanders
would know the answer to such a seemingly simple question. To
be sure I got in-depth answers I lingered mainly on the Portland
State University campus and Pioneer Square, “Portland’s
living room,” where all the deep thinkers hang out reading
Nietzsche and playing chess.
But
when it came down to a simple question like “what
causes acne?” many Portlanders paused, thought for a
minute, gave a sheepish smile, and confessed, “Well, I don’t
really know.” With a little goading they gave me their best
“educated” guess.
Some
answers were as simple as oily skin while others were quite a
bit more vague. But probably the most interesting answer—an
answer one would expect from a stereotypical Portlander—was
that acne is caused by a persons “negative energy.”
Although as intriguing as that explanation sounded, I made sure
and referred them to AcneRecovery.com.
I’ll
admit, I couldn’t judge whether an answer they gave was
better than the other, that’s in Dr. Wilkinson’s department,
so without too much speculation I narrowed down the answers into
9 different categories. I’ll admit that there are a couple
categories that could be combined or further delineated, but for
simplicity’s sake I generalized them to what I thought the
root of the answers were.
So,
without further adieu…
Coming
in as the most commonly decided cause
of acne according to Portland is…(drum roll)…CLOGGED
PORES at 28%! I included answers such as, dirty skin, dirty face,
dirt on face, oil, oily glands, and oily skin into this category.
Really, I clumped anything that had to do with a face and something
that you would typically want to wash off of it.
Coming
in second place is stress with 20%. That’s right, stress
(also known as an anxiety disorder) is the most common mental
illness in the United States and now is also Portland’s
number two self-diagnoses for acne.
Third
place goes to “Diet” with 14%. In this category I
included answers like, chocolate, fast food, poor nutrition, cookies,
etc. When I asked the person who said acne was from cookies whether
they really thought it was the cookies fault, they made sure I
clearly understood the physiological sequence from the basic ingredients
of a cookie, mainly sugar and butter, to a pimples. I didn’t
argue, but I’m still not convinced.
The
rest of the answers I got to the question, What causes acne?:
Hormones
– 12%
Genetics/Heredity
– 10%
No
Idea – 6% (After a great deal of pressing them they still
refused to be pinned down to an answer. Oh well.)
Bacteria
– 4%
Health
(Lifestyle and/or exercise) – 4%
Fatigue
– 2%
So
where would your answer fit in these categories?
