Health · Fact check

Do you lose most of your body heat through your head?

Rated: False 1 of 5 on the fact-check scale

No — the evidence does not support this claim.

FalseTrue

The claim

You lose most of your body heat through your head.

What the evidence shows

You do not lose most of your body heat through your head. The head is only about 7 percent of the body's surface area, and heat loss is roughly proportional to how much bare skin is exposed. Estimates put head heat loss around 7–10 percent. The myth traces to 1950s military cold-exposure tests in which subjects were bundled up except for their bare heads, exaggerating the head's share.

This summary describes a fact-check originally published by Live Science. FactGuard did not conduct this review; we summarize it and link to the original. Read the original fact-check by Live Science →