男女对温度的感受不同?

It happens every summer: offices turn on the air-conditioning, and women freeze into popsicles.

But until now, there was no data to understand why women felt cold and were slipping on cardigans while men just rolled up their sleeves at the same temperature at the work place.

"I always feel cold and coming in (to work) you always find yourself wearing a jacket. Yet, at the same time, it seems that everyone else is finding the temperature quite pleasant."

Now a new study by two Dutch scientists - published last week in the prestigious journal Nature Climate Change - has offered an answer to this longstanding question.

They say that most office buildings set temperatures based on a decades-old formula that is based on the metabolic rates of men.

The formula developed in the 1960s is based on the average body temperature of a 40-year-old man weighing about 154 pounds.

It actually overestimates a woman's metabolic rate by about 35 percent.

No wonder women feel the chill at work, says another office worker.

"If I think about all my female friends, all the female colleagues in the office, everybody, it's definitely always the females who are complaining about being cold."

According to Prof Paul Thornalley, of Warwick Medical School, women usually have a slower metabolic rate than men, mainly because they are smaller and have more body fat. This means they produce less body heat and feel cold more easily.

Another issue is differences in office attire. Many men still have to wear suits and ties in the melting summer heat but women can opt to wear skirts, sandals and other lighter, more skin-baring clothes.

Here is a male worker summing up the dress-code dilemma.

"I can't wear short-sleeved shirts to work and most days I come in with a tie. So it's easier for a woman to take the layers on and off. Whereas for a man, this is it. I've got to be stuck like this the whole day."

So what can be done about this? It could take years before the construction industry and air-condition manufacturers come up with a new standard.

Until then, Radhika Sanghani, a writer for Telegraph's Wonder Women in the UK says a bit of common sense and sensitivity at the work place could go a long way.

"We don't need any sort of crazy legislation or anything like that. It's just a case of common sense and if there are women complaining about the cold then maybe workplaces can think about lowering the AC (air-conditioning) or relaxing dress codes for men so they maybe don't have to wear a suit to work."

The study by the two Dutch scientists concludes that setting temperatures at slightly warmer levels can not only "reduce gender-discriminating bias in thermal comfort" but also help combat global warming.

The archaic formula that is still being used may have worked well in the male-dominated offices in the 60's.

But now, women form almost half of the work force. So it is time someone readjusted that thermostat.

For Cri I'm Poornima Weerasekara.