--- title: This Map Shows Where People Do and Don't Like to Be Touched description: Because you really needed a graphic to show you what's socially acceptable canonical: https://time.com/4090025/touching-map/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-27T23:27:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:42.218Z article:section: Science og:title: This Map Shows Where People Do and Don't Like to Be Touched og:description: Because you really needed a graphic to show you what's socially acceptable og:url: https://time.com/4090025/touching-map/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54634d107d4dc331/69886e665f570fb0fcb1e0d2/touch-chart.jpg?branch=production&width=544&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 544 og:image:height: 306 og:image:alt: touch-chart og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Map Shows Where People Do and Don't Like to Be Touched twitter:description: Because you really needed a graphic to show you what's socially acceptable twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54634d107d4dc331/69886e665f570fb0fcb1e0d2/touch-chart.jpg?branch=production&width=544&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Map Shows Where People Do and Don't Like to Be Touched > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=7c2eebcf-f754-45cf-a759-2845b8dde15f&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Oct 27, 2015 11:27 PM UTC  Relationship-specific TAMs across all studied countries. Relationship-specific TAMs across all studied countries. PNAS  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Oct 27, 2015 11:27 PM UTC Ever wonder whether you should shake someone’s hand or hug them? Oxford University now has the answer. The British university, in conjunction with Finland’s Aalto University, conducted the largest study on physical contact ever and found that—surprise!—people don’t really want to be touched by strangers anywhere except their hands. But they did find that women are more comfortable with physical contact than men. The researchers polled of over 1300 men and women in five different countries (Britain, Finland, France, Italy and Russia) about where they felt comfortable being touched by partners, friends of the same and opposite sex, family members and strangers. Their responses were distilled into a map that shows which areas are (literally) up for grabs and which are off limits. The results were [published](http://However there were some unexpected findings, such as men would rather be touched on their genitals by a casual female acquaintance than by their own mother.) in journal PNAS this week. The graphic shows the obvious: genitals are a taboo zones, people of both genders are more comfortable with physical contact with their mothers than their fathers. But the study also found odd tidbits: Italians are more comfortable being touched than Russians, for instance. Finns proved the most comfortable with contact and Brits the least. The research also determined that when it came to touching, nominal relationships (like whether someone was a blood relative) mattered more than the frequency with which people encountered one another. “It is the relationship rather than familiarity that matters. A friend we haven’t seen for some time will still be able to touch areas where an acquaintance we see every day would not,” Oxford University’s Professor Dunbar [explains](http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-10-27-maps-show-where-touching-allowed-0) on Oxford’s website. ### 5 Horrible Habits You Need to Stop Right Now  Do Not Email First Thing in the Morning or Last Thing at Night “The former scrambles your priorities and all your plans for the day and the latter just gives you insomnia,” says Ferriss, who insists “email can wait until 10am” or after you check off at least one substantive to-do list item. Chris Pecoraro—Getty Images  Do Not Agree to Meetings or Calls With No Clear Agenda or End Time “If the desired outcome is defined clearly… and there’s an agenda listing topics–questions to cover–no meeting or call should last more than 30 minutes,” claims Ferriss, so “request them in advance so you can ‘best prepare and make good use of our time together.'” Sam Edwards—Getty Images/Caiaimage  Do Not Check Email Constantly Batch it and check it only periodically at set times (Ferriss goes for twice a day). Your inbox is analogous to a cocaine pellet dispenser, says Ferriss. Don’t be an addict. Tools like strategic use of the auto responder and Boomerang can help. Jetta Productions—Getty Images  Do Not Carry a Digital Leash 24/7 At least one day a week leave you smartphone somewhere where you can’t get easy access to it. If you’re gasping, you’re probably the type of person that most needs to do kick this particular habit. by nacoki ( MEDIA ARC )—Getty Images/Flickr RF  Do Not Let People Ramble Sounds harsh, but it’s necessary, Ferriss believes. “Small talk takes up big time,” he says, so when people start to tell you about their weekends, cut them off politely with something like “I’m in the middle of something, but what’s up?” But be aware, not everyone agrees with this one (and certainly not in every situation), and you may want to pay particularly close attention to norms around chit chat when traveling internationally. Reza Estakhrian—Getty Images ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There's something we all enjoy about staying for dinner. You ever thought why? What was on your dinner table when you were younger? Chances are it had a lot to do with, what your doctor was telling you is healthy. Building a strong healthy body is like building a strong, beautiful building. If the foundation is weak, the whole building will be weak. It takes five fingers to point the way to healthful eating habits. Well, here we go. For years, the government published dietary guidelines. Meant to keep Americans healthy. There's a great deal to learn. Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are. The body needs certain substances to live and grow. And remember, your body isn't just like an automobile. For years, the key measures of those guidelines were the same, cut fat from your diet. The committee's original report urged Americans to reduce their risk of heart attack. By reducing their intake of cholesterol down to the equivalent of about one egg a day. And those guidelines had an effect. From 1977 to 2012, per capita consumption of eggs fell by 9 %, beef by 37 %, whole milk by 72 %. Calories from saturated fat fell, while calories from supposedly safe carbohydrates increased. As one expert put it, it was a vast nutritional experiment. With nearly a million American's a year dropping dead from heart disease in the mid 80s, we had to try something. Nearly four decades later results are in. The experiment was a failure. Americans are sicker than they've ever been before. The prevalence of diabetes has gone up 157 % from 1980 to 2011. Nearly one in ten Americans now has the disease. Causing the public health system $ 245 billion a year. Heart disease is still the number one killer in the country. Americans are as obese as ever. So, what went wrong? Good old granola. Great for taste but loaded with fat. It doesn't take much of imagine a leap to assume that fat would make us fat, clog our arteries and raise the risk of heart disease. It turns out that saturated fat is a lot more complicated than we think. Carbohydrates and fats are nutrients. Like man, you need nutrients to live and grow. [ MUSIC ] Firstly, there are two kinds of cholesterol. LDL which is linked to heart disease and HDL which can be protective. Fats that course through the blood are known as triglycerides and high levels of those are linked to heart disease. Saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol but also raises HDL. Moving LDL buildup on arterial walls. So raising both, makes saturated fat a cardio wash. One key piece of information is that LDL seems to come in two forms. Large and fluffy, small and dense. Those smaller particles are linked to heart disease, while the larger ones are mostly benign. Saturated fat increases the number of large particles. The opposite happens with carbs. I don't get it. Researchers have long since discovered the kind of fats found in olives and in fish like salmon. Are actually heart protective. Now it turns out the fats found in meat and dairy, aren't as bad as we feared before. So that means by focusing so much on fats. We may actually have been making ourselves sicker. So, she brings up the subject of reduced- fat cheese. It's a fat- free [ UNKNOWN ]. Fat- free, cholesterol free. Low- fat granola. Reduced- fat Kettle chips. Reduced- fat Chips Ahoy. Lowfat cottage cheese. Non- fat yogurt is the perfect example. The thinking for consumers was simple. Fat was dangerous. This product had no fat. Therefore, it must be healthy. It's non- fat, which means less calories. [ MUSIC ] But amid the confusion about fat, we end up replacing it in our diets with sugars and carbohydrates, which meant our calorie intake was actually going up. When carbs and things like corn and white bread are ingested into your body, their converted into sugars. Those sugars convert to insulin cuz it's fat cells go into storage overdrive, leading to weight gain. Since fewer calories are then left to fill the body, you begin to feel hungry it means our metabolism begins to slow down in effort to save energy, we eat more and we gain more weight, never quite feeling full. As this process repeats, our cells become more resistant to insulin, which causes us to gain more weight, which increases insulin resistance in a vicious circle. Cut calories, and people just get hungrier. Obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol can all follow. Study after study has found it's very difficult to lose weight on a very low- fat diet. Possibly because fat and meat can produce a sense of satiety, that's hard to achieve with carbs, making it easier to simply stop eating. But it isn't just the increase in carbs that affects us. These processed, low saturated fat alternatives, come loaded with sugars, salt, preservatives, and even some unhealthy fats. So what's the real alternative? As one extra puts it, the cold hard truth about diet is that the only way to eat well, is to eat well. You'll be happier and you'll be healthier, if you focus on real whole foods, whether they have fat or not. Got it. 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