Findings from last year show little kids burn so much energy they're 'like a different species.' ScienceMagArchives
As any parent knows, toddlers are bundles of energy. Now, the first comprehensive study of energy use over the human life span has quantified their burn rate: Infants between the ages of 9 and 15 months expend a stunning 50% more energy in 1 day than adults do, adjusted for body size. These wee dynamos consume and use up energy even faster than pregnant women and teenage boys, most likely to fuel their energetically expensive brains and organs.
But children also burn out fast. Their high metabolisms make them particularly vulnerable to stunted growth and disease if they don’t get the calories they need. Their cells may also metabolize drugs faster than those of adults, which means they may need more frequent doses.
In the new study, Pontzer and his colleagues created a large database that pooled the results of existing, high-quality doubly labeled water studies of 6421 people from 29 nations, between the ages of 8 days and 95 years. The team calculated the daily metabolic rates for each individual by taking their total daily energy rate from the doubly labeled water studies and adjusting it for body size and mass, as well as organ size.
The study also found that pregnant women don’t have higher metabolic rates than other adults; their energy use and calorie consumption scales up with body size. “We know that pregnant women burn more calories, but they’re burning more energy just by virtue of being bigger,” Pontzer says.
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