Here’s why women feel cold in the office

By adjusting thermostats, building managers can help make employees more comfortable at work while simultaneously saving money from lower heating and cooling costs, said the study’s lead researcher, Boris Kingma, a biophysicist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

“Standard values for one of its primary variables-metabolic rate-are based on an average male, and may overestimate female metabolic rate by up to 35 percent”.

According to a study released Monday in Nature Climate Change, temperatures are often set based on a standard from the 1960s that only takes into account the metabolic rate of the average 154-pound 40-year-old man, an industry standard.

Body heat production is directly linked to metabolic rates, which refer to how much energy your body requires to maintain its physical functions.

When researchers tested young women performing light office work, while dressed in a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, they discovered that their optimum temperature was 75F (24.5C).

If you work in an office, there’s a good chance it’s absurdly over-air-conditioned during the summer.

CBS News medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula told “CBS This Morning” that the formula never accounted for the metabolic rate of women. Women, by and large, have lower metabolisms; when Kingma and van Marken Lichtenbelt had 16 women perform office tasks in a sealed chamber – to measure metabolic proxies like breathing – they found the industry standards were overcooling for these women by nearly a third.

“Women are generally smaller than men and have a higher body fat percentage”. And there’s lots of anecdotal evidence, at least, that offices remain at the cooler temperatures suggested by the formula, against the wishes of female workers. Short of resurrecting the two-martini lunch (a nice vodka-shield by 2 o’clock, and Snuggies don’t come with olives) we could refine the formula or experiment with more efficient ways of controlling indoor temperatures. A thermometer pill the women swallowed reported internal body temperature. “You could also say let’s keep it a very cold building and women should just wear more clothes”.

What the researchers found was that the women felt cold.

Here at Business Insider, we decided to survey people about the office temperature (possible answers included too hot, too cold, or just right).

Dr Joost van Hoof from Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, said: “These findings could be significant for the next round of revisions of thermal comfort standards – which are on a constant cycle of revision and public review – because of the opportunities to improve the comfort of office workers and the potential for reducing energy consumption”.

[Are menopausal women to blame for why it’s so cold in your office?].