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PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   583 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 24, 2024

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When we look at historical records, we often see even relatively sedentary men ate 3000, 5000, or even more kCals per day.

Huh? Where are the historic sedentary men eating over 5000 calories on a daily basis?

It's going to be hard for me to dig that up. It was on X and was based on records of courtiers in some European country.

Not the same, but here's the best I could do with 3 minutes of Perplexity: Trench soldiers eating 4600 kCals per day during WWI. Obviously, they were very active, but also must have weighed an average of like 140 pounds.

https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/micrograph/index.cfm/posts/2023/beef_bread_and_coffee_food_innovations_during_world_war_I

Even assuming extreme activity, this should only burn less than 3200 kCals per day: https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=male&age=19&lbs=140&in=69&act=1.9&f=1

I've seen many other records of historical people eating large amounts of calories. Maybe they're dubious, I'm not sure.

records of courtiers in some European country.

These guys were probably fat. I can definitely buy a sedentary fat man eating five thousand calories a day.

Trench soldiers

It's pretty believable that trench warfare has higher caloric demands than athletic training. Athletes stop training once they are in danger of overexerting themselves, while the infantry has no such luxury.

That trench soldiers maintained weight on 4600 calories a day should make us extremely skeptical of sedentary, normal BMI people eating 5kcal day in, day out unless they have some kind of metabolic disease, let alone this happening often.

This is begging the question.

You assume that caloric consumption is determined almost entirely by activity level, and therefore any evidence against this theory must be wrong somehow.

My post of course, was about body temperature, not really about the causes of obesity, but I do understand the temptation to latch onto the hottest and most bikeshedd-y of all culture war items: the CICO thesis.

In any case, since I can't resist either, I will propose that higher body temperature provides a possible mechanism for people to burn a much higher (or lower) amount of calories than can be explained by the Mifflin-St. Jeor Equation.

therefore any evidence against this theory must be wrong somehow.

What evidence?

I do understand the temptation to latch onto the hottest and most bikeshedd-y of all culture war items: the CICO thesis.

I didn't see anything especially notable in the post except for this wild claim I'd never heard of before of skinny people often putting away over five thousand calories a day in the past.

In any case, since I can't resist either, I will propose that higher body temperature provides a possible mechanism for people to burn a much higher (or lower) amount of calories than can be explained by the Mifflin-St. Jeor Equation.

There's obviously some degree of RMR difference between people (and the existence of people at the tails of the RMR distribution does not contradict CICO in the slightest btw).

However, it's notable that people are eating way more food these days than at basically any point in the past. That figure is a little rough since it doesn't actually measure what people are eating - those numbers show a similar story but they only seem to go back to the seventies. So it's a little hard to imagine that our ancestors had significantly higher metabolisms while eating significantly less. Small changes are possible and not that interesting to me.

All but one were eaten by Henry VIII.

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