My eight year old son asked me why fingers turn into raisins after swimming for 2 hours, I didn't know why.

Question

Can anyone tell me?

Answer 1

The skin absorbs water, causing it to swell up & pucker. This gives it that "raisin" effect, which goes away as the skin dries out.

Answer 2

Most all body systems and parts want to have the same concentration of water inside and outside. You body absorbs water from the pool in an attempt to balance out the concentration of chlorine-y water inside and outside of the body. Since the outer layer of skin is tightly attached to the skin underneath, it compensates for the increased area by wrinkling. Thus, a rasin finger.

Answer 3

Its not just because you soak up water in the skin, its also because you lose body fluid or lymph through the skin by diffusion:

Chemicals goes from hier to lower concentrations.

In the body, there are more salts, ions, molecules, sugars, chemicals and other "things" in the body's 'water' (lymph) supply, than there are in the pool water.

Thus, the 'lymph' diffuses OUT from the body (hi concentration) through the skin INTO the pool water, where the concentration is lower.

This causes the skin to 'deflate' due to the lost water/pressure, and look raisiny.
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Consider perfume sprayed in the air. It is at first in hi concentration, eventually, it will diffuse throughout the room, where the concentration is lower. This is the same principle happening when our hi concentration body-water is in a low concentration pool-water.

Answer 4

It's due to the skin absorbing water.
This is natural body defence for letting you know that you've spent to much time in the water.

Answer 5

It might be a little hard for him to grasp, after all, I didn't learn this until my eleventh grade biology class, but the reason is found in the answers to what hypotonic, hypertonic, and a isotonic solutions are...

And if he does grasp those concepts and the terms to go with them, you should raise him as a genius! ^_^

Answer 6

Because your skin absorbs water and that enlarges the skin causeing wrinkles

To Bruce B- "it" srinks becuase it is cold but you proboly don't notice the difference in yours much.

Answer 7

Because the keratin-laden cornified epithelium on our hands and feet takes up water; the swollen keratin causes the wrinkling.

Answer 8

I believe it is because the water eventually washes out your natural oils in your fingertips. The same oils that leave fingerprints for the CSI guys.

Answer 9

just tell him that it is the first step into converting human hand to webbed hands so that he will be able to swim faster than fish.

Answer 10

is that a joke haha cuz the blood thinks it be dilluted by the water which it fills when u r in the water