TouchEnded fires before Touched -- by design?

I am noticing that the TouchEnded event for a Part fires long before the Touched event, even if I've never touched the Part. Is this by design? I'm using a simple script to verify, and walking my character near and away from the Part in question:

script.Parent.Part.Touched:connect(
    function(collidingPart)
        print ("Touch Began for Part, collidingPart is " .. tostring(collidingPart))
    end)


script.Parent.Part.TouchEnded:connect(
    function(collidingPart)
        print ("Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is ".. tostring(collidingPart))
    end)

Edit: I updated the code to print the colliding part, and I'm getting these parts from my avatar as I move close to the object without touching it. Here is a top-down image of the situation: http://imgur.com/a/LREjd

Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is RightHand

Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is RightLowerArm

Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is RightUpperArm

Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is LeftHand

Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is LeftLowerArm

Touch Ended for Part, collidingPart is LeftUpperArm

It appears that these parts (RightHand, LeftHand etc.) are indeed the closest parts to the colliding object, but they're still very far from touching.