Dietary habit helps improve people's adaptability to hot climates: a case study of hotpot in Chongqing, China.

Global warming has raised significant concerns about mitigation and adaptation strategies in recent years. This study investigated if consuming spicy food can help improve people's adaptability to hot environment. Onsite measurement and thermal questionnaires were conducted at Chongqing university in summer and winter aged 18 ∼ 30 years old. Participants were categorized into two groups, including frequently eating hotpot (Group-yes) and not (Group-no), and there were respectively 590 and 570 surveys. The results indicated that: (1) Eating hotpot could lower expectations of meteorological conditions. (2) It can decrease thermal sensitivity and expand neutral physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) range (14.89 ∼ 24.74 ℃ in Group-yes and 16.66 ∼ 23.98 ℃ in Group-no). (3) The acceptable PET range in Group-yes was 5.46 ℃ wider than Group-no with a higher preferred PET in Group-yes (24.04 ℃) compared to Group-no (22.63 ℃). (4) Respondents' thermal perception in Group-yes demonstrated a less susceptibility to meteorological variations compared to Group-no, and respondents in Group-no were more influenced by RH in summer. These findings suggest that consuming hotpot can improve thermal adaptation, thereby underscoring the significant influence of dietary habits on thermal adaptability.