Benefits June 27, 2008

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

June 27, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - It may offer "dry heat", but that doesn't mean it can't also be wet in Phoenix - a city that tops the annual list of the nation's sweatiest cities by Old Spice deodorant.
Reported by

In celebration of the beginning of summer, Old Spice this week announced its Seventh Annual Top-100 Sweatiest Cities List – and this year, for the first time ever, also introduced its list of Biggest Sweat Producers, taking into consideration the total sweat produced by entire city populations.

As for those sweaty cities, Las Vegas has the “distinction” of coming in second, followed by Tallahassee, Florida. The ranking is based on computer simulations of the amount of sweat an average person would have produced walking around in cities for an hour during June, July and August of last year.

To earn top spot as Sweatiest City, Phoenix’s average temperature was 95.1 degrees in June, July and August 2007, resulting in the average Phoenix resident producing 26.4 ounces of sweat per hour (more than 2 cans of soda). Oh, and Phoenix has topped the sweaty city list in 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2003.

“People might be surprised that a city known for its ‘dry heat’ tops the Sweatiest Cities list,” said Dr. Paul Ruscher, associate professor and associate chair of meteorology at Florida State University, in a press release. “However, sweat tends to evaporate from the skin much more quickly in places like Phoenix and people just don’t feel it as much as say in New Orleans or Miami where high humidity leads to that dreaded sticky, ‘muggy’ feeling.”

However, when it came to the Biggest Sweat Producer, Phoenix was a distant sixth place behind the Big Apple. New York topped this new listing, even though the average temperature was just 73.8 degrees during June, July and August 2007. However, according to Old Spice, on an average summer day, New Yorkers can produce 1.3 million gallons of sweat per hour. That was well ahead of second-place Los Angeles (608,664 gallons of sweat per hour) and Chicago with 449,285 gallons. Also on that list:

  • Houston 387,790 gallons
  • Norfolk, Virginia 376,087 gallons
  • Phoenix 311,629 gallons
  • Philadelphia 238,869 gallons
  • San Antonio 229,606 gallons
  • Dallas 222,420 gallons
  • San Diego 184,929 gallons

Other Study Highlights

  • On a typical summer day, residents of Los Angeles - the city with the most cars on the road in the nation - can collectively produce enough sweat to fill the gas tanks of 27,667 SUVs in just one hour (how's THAT for an alternative source of energy?).
  • Living up to its nickname, the Sunshine State has four cities appearing in the Top 10
  • Sweatiest Cities, more than any other state; Tallahassee (No. 3), Miami (No. 6), Tampa (No.
  • 8), and Fort Myers (No. 10)
  • When taking a look at what region reigns when it comes to producing sweat, that honor
  • overwhelmingly goes to the South, where residents can collectively produce 3,634,581 gallons
  • in just one hour on a typical summer day. This is nearly double the amount of second-place
  • West region, with 2,088,923 gallons. Next is the Northeast, producing 1,942,536 gallons, and the Midwest rounds out the list, with 1,494,856 gallons.
  • Me came in at number 5 this year, (up from No. 14 last year) and breaking into the Top 10 Sweatiest Cities for the first time since 2002

Oh - and by the way - the least sweaty city (among the top 100) - San Francisco.

«