Why do we need to insulate our upper body in cold weather but not our legs?
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Your torso is almost entirely filled with fluid save for your lungs, be it blood or interstitial fluid.
By keeping your core warm, you allow all of the blood passing through your central arteries and heart to be warmed up as well, which prevents the need for having to keep your extremities as insulated.
It’s like having a boiler in the basement of an apartment building, where keeping that running and warm provides warmth to all of the other apartments.
There are situations where you also need to warm the extremities, such as being in very cold water, and even to some degree when you’re sweating badly. The core and ultimately your body can’t keep up with warming itself when you’re wet, because of how much more heat is conducted vs air. That’s why you’ll see elite athletes and military personnel who have to push their bodies and sweat like crazy still keep themselves covered and insulated so when they stop moving they don’t get too cold.
Well you actually do need to wear pants if the weather is cold enough. It’s often that a jacket is enough insulation and tossing on a jacket is easier than snow pants as people don’t spend all day in sub zero weather often and those who do are moving doing stuff which produces extra heat to keep them warm enough.
Because limbs don’t have any vital organs in them. All they need is a warm blood pumping through your weins/arteries from the core, the torso. We need to keep upper body warm so our organs can function properly, otherwise our body will start shaking in order to generate some warmth. Fingers, hands, feets, ears and nose are the first thing to give up to frostbite though.
Why do we wear big puffy down winter jackets in freezing weather while only wearing one layer of regular pants? Why don’t our legs require the same amount of insulation?
Your legs mostly consist of large muscles that are in constant use. Muscles produce heat when they’re used.
Your legs also have a lot of vascularity to support those big muscles. This means there’s a lot of blood flowing to keep them close to your average body temperature.
Basically, your legs don’t get cold very quickly when you’re outside, especially if you’re moving around.
If you’re outside for a long time and/or you aren’t moving, you’ll find yourself wishing that you did insulate your legs.
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