Smelling test: children need education in sniffing aromas, scientist says

Dr Will Tullett, a historian of smells at the University of York, has called for enhanced education on sniffing and recognizing aromas to enhance children's wellbeing and perception of the world. According to Tullett, pollution has been found to impair people's olfactory abilities, and many modern objects and substances lack their original scents due to being "reodourised" with synthetic fragrances.

Tullett believes there is an open question on how the widespread use of these synthetic scents impacts our ability to distinguish different smells.

To address this issue, Tullett proposed an olfactory education system, advocating for its inclusion in primary and secondary school curriculums, as well as at home. He suggested encouraging children to engage with a wider range of scents, drawing parallels to how sommeliers expand their olfactory vocabulary by exploring diverse marketplaces. By doing so, individuals can learn to compare and contrast smells, fostering a deeper understanding of their similarities.

Tullett also highlighted the potential benefits of increased olfactory education in understanding ourselves, such as why certain odors are comforting and how they can provide insights about our surroundings. For instance, being able to discern whether food is fresh or not through smell rather than solely relying on use-by dates could help prevent food waste and ensure food safety.

Moreover, Tullett emphasized that a greater appreciation for the role of smell in our lives is often undiscovered, as people frequently recall vivid memories associated with specific aromas. However, they may lack the language and confidence to discuss their knowledge of smell's importance.

Tullett debunked the misconception that the past was a more aromatic era, stating that it smelled differently, not necessarily more or less so than the present. He pointed out that recognizing this difference is crucial in addressing how smell is often used to mark distinctions between people, such as landlords discriminating against residents based on perceived food aromas or a proposed bill in the Commons that could criminalize rough sleepers for emitting strong odors.

He urged people to question their attitudes towards unpleasant smells, empathize with others' olfactory preferences, and use thoughtful sniffing to foster better understanding of ourselves and others. Tullett also noted that specific scents are tied to certain times, contexts, and places, predicting that 21st-century Britain would be associated with the aromas of hand sanitizers, wildfires, and water pollution, with a wood fire once being a nostalgic scent, but the smell of burning vegetation and wood increasingly becoming a fearful one.