Have you ever wondered how much your hands weigh? I have – to the point of obsession
Summer makes me go a bit odd. A case in point – I spotted a headline recently that read: “Your hands are probably about twice as heavy as you think they are”, and I became instantly obsessed. How heavy are mine, and how could I weigh them? If I estimated their weight, would I mentally factor in this bombshell headline, skewing the result? I mean, have you ever thought about the weight of your hands? Go on: how heavy do you think they are?
Then I found myself wondering whether heavy hands were bad, like heavy legs are in France. Every pharmacy there will offer you a selection of products at varying prices to deal with what is, I believe, a fictional condition, and if you tell a medical professional that your legs are heavy, they will take this entirely seriously and may even prescribe a trip to walk around in some knee-high seawater, like a racehorse, in a coastal spa somewhere. I’ve seen (and envied) it. Has the scourge spread? What is happening to our hands?
I spent a long time on overwrought thoughts along these lines, while I should have been tending to almost anything else: work, the house, the ailing dog, my ebbing grasp on reality, before finally clicking through and reading the article. The Birkbeck College study behind the headline was exploring the fact that it is apparently fairly common for people fitted with prosthetic limbs to complain that they feel too heavy, even when they are lighter than a real limb; the researchers hope the study could lead to better prosthetic design in future.
“How much do you think your hand weighs?” I asked my husband. He didn’t even look puzzled; he has lived through many summers with me. “Quite a lot – maybe 500g?” He’s not far off (this is what comes of marrying an engineer, I suppose). The average is 400g, which left me even more bemused. People think their hands weigh 200g? That’s nothing! I weighed mine on the kitchen scales to check: 409g (right) and 426g left). Oh yes, it’s been a fun summer in our house.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
a creeping societal pressure to reverse the visible (and biological) effects that come with each advancing year. Private companies recognise this, creating products that claim to bottle “youth”; the idea of returning to your prime and the fullness of life. We are surrounded by marketing and advertising that encourages us to seek out this elusive goal and tries to get us to spend money, from hundreds of pounds to millions.
I’m just as guilty as anyone of thinking how quickly life flies by as I approach 40. But I’ve changed my mindset from not wanting to age to taking steps to age as naturally and healthily as I can. For me, it is about maintaining functional health with each passing year: can my mind and body do the things that I want them to do, such as run 5km or solve Wordle? And can I avoid health conditions such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension that tend to come with being older and south Asian?
We don’t know how to “reverse” ageing, but decades of public health research have created an evidence base for how to live longer: don’t smoke, don’t drink too much, eat a diverse and balanced diet, avoid ultra-processed foods, try to move each day – even if just walking – and maintain muscle mass, and stay socially active with friends and acquaintances. Loneliness, especially for those aged 50 or older, has potential consequences, including a 50% increased risk of dementia, 29% increased risk of heart disease, 32% increased risk of a stroke and a significant increase in risk of premature death from all causes.
Medicine may some day provide the “cure” for the biological effects of ageing. Until then, a lot of the answers to living well as we age can already be found in public health research. And while getting older is often seen in negative terms, it is ultimately a marker of the success of our public health and medical systems that we are growing older as a species. In 1841, life expectancy at birth was roughly 40 years old. Forty wasn’t midlife: it was life. Ageing is simply a byproduct of living and living another year is cause enough to celebrate each birthday that comes.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh