Swimming Pools, Poop, and Ear Infections

So here's an interesting statistic... The average person has 0.14 grams of feces on their rear end. If a person does not shower prior to swimming, that 0.14 grams of stool gets washed off into the swimming pool. Kids tend to have a bit more stool on their rear end (up to 10 grams). [statistic taken from CDC as reported by NBC News]

That means if 100 individuals enter the swimming pool in any given day without showering beforehand, anywhere from 14 grams to 1 kilogram of stool enter the swimming pool water (0.03 - 2.2 pounds).

Although sunlight, chlorine, and filtration helps clean the water, it takes time (and is why a swimming pool is shut down the rest of the day when an obvious code brown occurs).

The stool issue is worse in lakes and oceans where you can add animals using such bodies of water as a toilet.

It may be one reason among many why swimming leads to increased risk of ear infections. Otitis externa (aka swimmer's ear) if the infection involves the ear canal skin or otitis media when an ear tube or a hole in the eardrum is present. It's also one reason why some ENTs recommend wearing ear plugs.

Now that's all very interesting... but perhaps the biggest question is HOW in the world did the CDC determine how many grams of residual stool on average is present on people's rear ends (kids and adults)??? Anyone know the answer to this? I would love to know the reference... I imagine that perhaps a bunch of GI docs who were performing colonoscopies scraped as much residual feces around people's bungholio prior to the colonoscopy and some poor technician had the unenviable task of weighing the scraped material.

Source:
No. 1 swimming pool problem? It's number two!. NBC News 5/16/13