Ah yes, it’s winter again. The weather is cold as ever, snow, which will soon turn into that miserable gray Midwestern slush, is on the ground, and it’s the perfect weather for shorts… wait what? Perfect weather for shorts? Why are so many people wearing shorts and T-shirts in the freezing weather? What happened to wearing jackets, hats, and gloves? If you were dropped onto Brainard Avenue at NC or the dropoff lane at SC at 7:40 a.m. on a school day in January, you wouldn’t know what season it is based on what the array of students rushing into school are wearing.
But that’s not how it should be. It feels like it suddenly became uncool to wear winter clothes during winter. I understand that when you’re going to school sometimes the only time you’re outside is to get in and out of the car, but that forms a habit of thinking you don’t need a jacket. But with this, you’ll get into the loop of thinking that if you don’t need a jacket when you go to school, you also won’t need a jacket when you go sledding, or go for a walk, or do any other outdoor activities where you do, in fact, need a jacket.
When you’re getting ready to go out with your friends and your mom yells at you to “PUT ON A JACKET,” you might say back to her, “No Mom, I’m not going to be cold.” But hours later, you get a cold-induced vision of your nice, warm jacket hanging on the hook by your door that you left at home just waiting for you to put it on one of these days, and now all you can think about is how you wished you had it on.
It’s really uncomfortable to be underdressed. It’s not fun to be cold and miserable when you could’ve been feeling the opposite if you decided to put on another layer. Especially because when you’re cold, the only thing you can think about is how cold you are. It’s much more embarrassing to be constantly asked, “Are you cold?” because you’re shivering than to just put on a warm set of clothes. Putting on a jacket, hat, and gloves takes at most an extra minute; and I promise your friends will wait.
When the word frostbite comes to mind you might think you have to be climbing Mt. Everest or living in Siberia to get it. But you can get frostbite, or more commonly frostnip, a less severe but still damaging stage of frostbite, right here in the Chicagoland area. According to the University of Chicago’s article on preventing frostbite, “cold injuries can occur in less than 15 minutes,” and “prevention is key,” which can be done by “[dressing] appropriately.” Wearing shorts and a T-shirt while there’s inches of snow on the ground is not dressing appropriately.
There’s actually a little known secret among teenagers to prevent from getting cold or getting frostbite this winter. Let’s say you’ve recently noticed that your hands are getting cold. There’s actually a product available to basically all high schoolers. It’s affordable, easy to use, and this product lasts for years. In fact, it’s so accessible that it’s available at grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, and more. Actually, I’m sure you’ve not just heard of this product but used it before: it’s called gloves. You can prevent unnecessary discomfort and damage from the cold on your hands by putting on a pair of gloves.
Jackets seem to have become teenagers’ mortal enemy, it’s an epidemic that plagues LT. Somehow it became uncool to dress warmly for winter. It obviously shouldn’t be like this, wearing winter clothes should not just be normal, but encouraged. So next time your mom offers you your jacket, instead of insisting that 15 degrees Fahrenheit is “warm,” for the sake of beating the stigma and just staying warm, put the jacket on.