Winter Healthy Fashion Keyword, Complete Equipment

It is not in any other season but only in winter in that what you wear directly affects your health. As seen in the case in the members of Sejong Base, outfits can sometimes decide one’s life or death.

Professor Lee Jung-kwon of Sungkyunkwan University at Samsung Seoul Hospital’s Family Medicine Department and Kim Jin-hee, head of the department of garment fabrics at LG Fashion, introduce healthy ways of wearing winter clothing.

Fashion comes after health. Patients with high blood pressure, people with stiff necks, people who always feel tired, or people with cerebral paralysis or heart disease patients in their family should pay special attention to keeping warm since they are prone to cerebral paralysis and heart disease due to contraction in the blood vessels in the cold winter. Especially those who drink a lot for business and have experienced “cut-film” phenomenon after drinking too much and suffer from stress at work should pay extra attention since there is an increasing number of patients of cerebral paralysis in their thirties or forties recently.

First of all, wear clothes which easily absorb perspiration and circulate the air in layers rather than one thick piece of clothing. This winter, many thin outer fabric clothes with thin and warm lining inside have been introduced, and this meets both fashion and warmth demands.

People who are sensitive to cold, especially women, have to be well equipped with their underwear. There are many kinds of effective underwear which are thin and strengthened in its function to retain the warmth.

Hats, scarves, and gloves or mittens are necessities in winter. Thirty percent of the body heat and water escapes through the head, so simply wearing a hat helps tremendously to keeping the warmth. The hat is especially helpful for the old.

On the other hand, if one ties a necktie too tightly, the neck artery can be pressured, and this increases the danger of cerebral paralysis. It is good to tie it a bit loosely so that a finger can fit in with the first button of the shirt undone.

It is better for women to wear pant suits than skirt suits. There are many stockings now in the market that are good in keeping the warmth, but the stockings that are too tight can cause problems in blood circulation and might be bad for the skin.

In order to prevent static electricity, it is always good to wear natural fabrics or 100 percent cotton. Choose clothes or shoes with anti static energy treatment, and using anti-static energy sprays is another way. People with skirt or pants problems which either stick to their legs or goes up the legs can prevent these by applying lotion on their legs before wearing them.

If one uses public transport to go to work and back home and spends more than 10 minutes walking, it is better for them to wear a half-length coat or a jumper rather than a long coat. Gore-tex jumpers that the members of the Sejong Base wore emit perspiration but prevent water from coming through the jumper, which is fit for the winter coat. Gore-tex parkas with an attached hood are very useful for rainy or snowy weather.

Gloves or mittens can be very helpful for winter health. Walking straight with gloves on can be safer than walking and shrugging the shoulders with one’s hands in the coat or pants’ pockets. In addition, walking with gloves on can prevent hurting one’s head or breaking some bones when falling on the icy road caused by not putting one’s hands on it right.

Tips for the chronic patients: patients with allergic rhinitis should avoid angora wool fabrics that cause much hair fluttering. Diabetes patients should avoid tight stockings, underwear, or pants since it might hamper blood circulation, thus increasing the possibility of a complication and should choose looser-fitting clothes instead. They are less likely to feel the senses correctly, so it is suggested that they avoid high heels or tight shoes and change socks more than twice a day since they can cause foot decay.

Old people who have difficulties in moving should not wear clothes which are too thick but wear smooth and soft clothes with quilted fabrics. Even if one is not a patient, Chinese medicine says that the cold hands prevent the qi (energy) from flowing smoothly in our body and affects our health. From this point of view, wearing gloves in the winter helps one’s health in many ways.

Seong-Ju Lee stein33@donga.com