Headlice
A lot of people think that having nits means you have dirty hair, they're wrong. Nits like to live in clean conditions too!
Head lice are small insects that only live on human scalps. They feed by sucking blood from your head (not too much, don't worry!) and lay eggs called nits. These eggs are stuck mainly behind your ears and at the top of your neck with a glue like substance, this keeps the eggs warm. It takes around 7 days for these eggs to hatch and they grow into more headlice.
Headlice can't fly or even jump but when you get close to someone that has headlice, they can walk from one head to another and this is how you can catch them.
Each year one out of ten of you will be infected with headlice no matter how long, short, dirty or clean your hair is.
You can find out if you have nits by using a fine tooth comb which your parents can buy from a pharmacy. Wash your hair and leave lots of condition in it, while your hair is wet tip your head over a white bath towel and comb from the very top of your head down to the ends of your hair. This way you can see if any headlice do fall out.
The easiest way to stop the spreading of nits is to wear your hair up all the time, this way nits and headlice will find it harder to crawl from someone elses head to yours.
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