Have you ever wondered how much your hands weigh? I have – to the point of obsession

After reading that they are far heavier than you think, I abandoned the housework, the dog – and my grip on reality – and got out the kitchen scales

Summer makes me go a bit odd. A case in point – I spotted a headline recently that read: “Your hands are probably about twice as heavy as you think they are”, and I became instantly obsessed. How heavy are mine, and how could I weigh them? If I estimated their weight, would I mentally factor in this bombshell headline, skewing the result? I mean, have you ever thought about the weight of your hands? Go on: how heavy do you think they are?

Then I found myself wondering whether heavy hands were bad, like heavy legs are in France. Every pharmacy there will offer you a selection of products at varying prices to deal with what is, I believe, a fictional condition, and if you tell a medical professional that your legs are heavy, they will take this entirely seriously and may even prescribe a trip to walk around in some knee-high seawater, like a racehorse, in a coastal spa somewhere. I’ve seen (and envied) it. Has the scourge spread? What is happening to our hands?

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist

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