Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the thermoregulatory behavior of young males in terms of self-identified thermal tolerance. We recruited 436 male students from Seoul ($24.0{\pm}4.6yr$ in age, $175.3{\pm}5.5cm$ in height, $70.1{\pm}10.6kg$ in body mass, and $23.0{\pm}2.7$ in BMI) in accordance with four types of self-identified thermal tolerance: 1) tolerable of both cold and heat, BCH (N=15); 2) heat tolerable only, HTO (N=118); 3) cold tolerable only, CTO (N=162); and 4) neither cold nor heat tolerable, NCH (N=141). The questionnaire consisted of 55 questions regarding preference to cold or heat environment, seasonal thermoregulatory behaviors including clothing habits, seasonal sleeping environments, health care/physical fitness, and anthropometric items. The results showed that: 1) BCH preferred less auxiliary heating devices, gloves/hats, or thermal underwear in winter and had very few experiences with cold/heat injuries or catching a cold, whereas NCH showed the opposite behavior and experiences as BCH; 2) thermoregulatory behaviors were not symmetrical between summer and winter. Most male students preferred cold beverage/foods to using cooling devices to lower body temperature in summer, whereas auxiliary heating devices were preferred to warm beverage/foods to maintain body temperature in winter; 3) thermoregulatory behaviors of NCH had more items in common with HTO than CTO, while the behaviors of BCH were more closely related to CTO than the behaviors of BCH were more closely related to CTO than HTO. Overall, we confirmed that thermoregulatory behaviors were apparently classified by self-identified thermal tolerance, and such behaviors could be adjusted by improving cold or heat tolerance.

Keywords

• thermoregulatory behavior;
• cold tolerance;
• heat tolerance;
• questionnaire;
• self-identified thermal tolerance