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Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
- HenryKissinger 5y agoClickbait headline. > 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. > “Little people are not burning energy like small adults,” says Duke University evolutionary biologist Herman Pontzer, who led the new analysis of data from around the world. “They are burning energy superfast … like a different species.”
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoYou sure picked the wrong quotes to make your point didn't you? It's like you're arguing with yourself
- kristianov 5y agoIt is known that training a deep neural net consume much more energy than inferencing it.
- SoylentOrange 5y agoI would like to see a citation for this claim as I suspect it is not true
- Enjaami 5y agoIt takes hours or days or weeks to train a net. It takes milliseconds or seconds to run inference.
- wil421 5y ago> Scientists know surprisingly little about how much energy we burn throughout our lives. That’s because such data require so-called doubly labeled water studies, an expensive test in which people drink “heavy” water with unusual versions of hydrogen and oxygen that can be chemically traced. Scientists measure the amount of these “isotopes” excreted in urine, blood, or saliva over 24 hours for 1 week or more to calculate how much energy individuals use on average in a day. I remember an article a while back on HN or Reddit about drinking heavy water. Interesting it’s a way to measure energy consumption.
- hprotagonist 5y ago> But children also burn out fast. This is well known in emergency medicine. Not only do kids burn out quick, they also burn out completely because they, unlike adults, don't keep a reserve. This applies to homeostasis, too. Consequently: young trauma victims that "look OK" need to be very closely attended to, because what you might be seeing is a kid burning the very last of their energy reserves just to maintain homeostasis, and they will NOT degrade gracefully once they're out of energy -- they'll just go right into the deep end of shock. Happy and talking to unconscious in 90 seconds is nothing you want to see.
- hutzlibu 5y agoThis is very important for any water related activities: many kids drowned because of this. Jumping, screaming and laughing in the water - the next moment gone. You have to pay attention. I do not mean, being overprotective, just pay really attention to them and you should notice, when they are about to reach their limits.
- baq 5y agosuper important in the age of smartphone parents.
- verytrivial 5y agoVery true. With two kids in the pool you have to be like one of those auto-tipping novelty birds: you check, you look away at something else, YOU CHECK, you have a splash and a look at the sky, YOU CHECK ...
- chasd00 5y agoVery good point. My boys are 11 and 9, I can count 3 times I’ve gone in fully clothed with phone/wallet in pocket to pull them out of a pool after getting in trouble. For them, it was panicking when getting in over their head ( heh no pun intended). Panicking in deep water is bad news. Edit: I distinctly remember one time being at a party surrounded by adults but the only one noticing the emergency. It’s like when a kid gets in trouble with water they become almost invisible… it’s very strange.
- colechristensen 5y agoAre the broad conclusions really that much new information? Were we really particularly scientifically blind to the basic energy usage as a function of age, or is this a somewhat more precise measure than was available before? Of course there is a lot of half-accurate folk wisdom about how much you eat when you're growing or old or whatever else, and it's useful to dispel and correct that a bit (but I'm assuming that data already existed) It would be nice to have the actual advance this study made over previous information be the center of the show instead of an offhand remark which is basically just a joke (both in the title and at the head of the article). It just seems like the important part of the story is absent.
- Supersam654 5y agoPersonally, I was more surprised by the various groups of people who _don't_ have higher metabolic rates: > Children’s metabolic rates stay high until age 5, but the rate slowly begins to glide down until it plateaus around age 20. Interestingly, adult rates are stable until age 60, when they begin to decline. After age 90, humans use about 26% less energy daily, Pontzer says. > 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 > The metabolic rate didn’t zoom up in hungry teenagers either
- tw04 5y agoThis seems almost unbelievable to me. Almost everyone I know, with a handful of exceptions I can think of, had a dramatic change in what I can only say was metabolism at 30 declining steeply to 40. I can tell you personally my ability to lose weight when exercising daily has decreased significantly since 30. If it’s not metabolism, then what? Diet and exercise are almost identical.
- sjg007 5y agoYou are probably consuming more calories than you think you are or not burning as many as you think you are.
- jacobsievers 5y agoI'll agree with that. There are certain lifestyle changes at that age range: office job, extra cash for eating out, etc.
- heliodor 5y agoOr you change jobs to one that gives you free snacks. Back when people worked in offices...
- epage 5y agoI can't say for the cases you named but its easy to overlook small lifestyle changes, like how much someone walked in college vs after. That was one shift for me.
- carrolldunham 5y agoSeems pretty dumb to talk about them having fast metabolisms and brains all this other forest-for-the-trees. They are going to double their body mass over a year. See how much energy you need if you try that
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pgayed 5y agoThis is approximately correct and should not be downvoted because it was written by an asshole‡. The disproportionate energy expenditure in children is almost certainly explained by cell division and growth. They are literally fashioning body mass from consumed food. ------- ‡ We would do well not to ignore assholes if they are stating something of consequence.
- crummy 5y agoBut newborns grow faster than infants and the increased energy expenditure was not seen in them.
- hk2001 5y agoMight have something to do with the fact that newborns barely move. Lots of kids will get increasingly chunky right up until the moment they start crawling/walking, when they start slimming down. I can’t imagine there’d be increased energy expenditure when you literally can’t roll yourself over, let alone move across a room.
- blub 5y agoWe should also not call someone that wrote a message in a certain way an asshole. You very likely don’t know that person and whether they’re an asshole.
- mdemare 5y ago15 months old infants do not double their body mass in a year. That takes about 4-5 years.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoI’m always amazed when I see my two-year-old eat breakfast. Having two eggs and toast etc. per his weight would be like eating like Michael Phelps!
- kazinator 5y agoIt's a general trend that small creatures expend more energy per unit of body weight than larger ones.
- InfiniteRand 5y agoThey're a different species and they are replacing us
- edoceo 5y agoGotta make way for the homo-superior.
- jeffrallen 5y agoOtoh, if you watch 9 year old boys on the playground, you would conclude that Neanderthals walk among us. Jeesh.
- edoceo 5y agoFriend, I think you missed the David Bowie reference. The song is Oh, you pretty things.
- rubyist5eva 5y agoMy 22 month old son wakes up at 5am, and doesn't stop running, climbing, singing and dancing, any possible "activity" you can think of until 7pm when we have to wrangle him for about an hour during "quiet time" until he eventually decides it's time him to sleep. The description "different species" seems apt because I really don't see how it's possible for such a tiny "human" to just have so much energy. All in jest of course. My son is my world.
- jjtheblunt 5y agoseems invariant across many mammals for toddlers at least: in dogs "the zoomies" for example fits the same description, cats too, unsure what else is comparable
- azeirah 5y agoOh yeah, my two kittens (and any kittens for that matter) were notorious in this matter. Play like nothing matters for half an hour, run, jump, sprint, crawl, scratch, everything like your life depends on it. And then just fall down on the spot for like an hour or two, followed up by a repeat of the same cycle. It's cute to watch, but also kind of scary. They just look _empty_ after that intense a playtime.
- rubyist5eva 5y agoI never thought of it that way - it seems my son has a near permanent case of the zoomies!
- brian_cunnie 5y agoMy notion is that life is a long, drawn-out amphetamine withdrawal, and this study supports that notion. ("amphetamine" loosely meaning energy level, not meaning the actual drug family)
- Synaesthesia 5y agoThis is why parents are always shouting at their kids to dress warmly, but I remember always being hot in my clothes as a kid and needing to take them off.
- Cyril_HN 5y agoIn summers I would bathe in cold water until I was blue and then some. My parents said that they used to be worried by it, but they realised I was totally OK. They would keep an eye on me, but if I was out of the bath, pool, or ocean for a couple of minutes I would be right back to warm. All I remember as a kid is being unusually warm in almost any cold conditions. Even now the cold doesn't bother me much, certainly less than my peers. I'm sure metabolism isn't everything there, but it probably helps.
- toto444 5y agoDo you think that could be the reason some adults can eat a lot and gain very little weight ?
- 11235813213455 5y agoStable weight simply means the intake calories are just enough for the spent energy (muscle and brain which still use 20% of energy for adult, for example a chess player can spend up to 6k calories/day when playing)
- 123pie123 5y ago> Children’s metabolic rates stay high until age 5, but the rate slowly begins to glide down until it plateaus around age 20 It reminds me of the quote from Rimmer in Red Dwarf - which was also used in a popular student uk song "Surfin’ USM" by the band "Carter USM" - https://youtu.be/_BGlAWeNFOE?t=11 https://youtu.be/_BGlAWeNFOE?t=11 Rimmer/ Red Dwarf: "When you're younger, you can eat what you like, drink what you like, and still climb in to your 26-inch-waist trousers and zip them closed. Then you reach that age- 24, 25- your muscles give up, they wave a little white flag, and without any warning at all, you're suddenly a fat bastard" This song stuck with me because it happend to me around 22-23, I gained crap loads of weight (around 3 stone/ 42 pounds/ 19kg)
- eloeffler 5y agoSo nice to see a fellow smeghead XD
- nmstoker 5y agoGreat quote, but I think the focus of the high metabolism in the research is mainly around the 9-15 months old period and so a sudden and dramatic weight chance in the twenties might be related to some other shift. This part of the article shows the effect over time, which is much less as time goes on: "Children’s metabolic rates stay high until age 5, but the rate slowly begins to glide down until it plateaus around age 20. Interestingly, adult rates are stable until age 60, when they begin to decline."
- Gatsky 5y agoInteresting that there is more variation between people at the same age than there is in the same person across multiple decades. Some of this is certainly genetic.
- lmilcin 5y agoNothing here that hasn't been a common knowledge in a long time. As a skipper I have also went through a lot of training for emergencies and children are practically treated as their own category on every step. In particular increased metabolic requirements, decreased ability to survive without oxygen, inability to survive in cold water for any length of time, and so on. Consequently, when I train my crews before I go for a cruise with them we have separate scenarios for emergencies with kids (assuming there are children on board).
- melicoy 5y agoI wonder how on Earth did they get so much energy. They are active all day all night. I do sometimes wish that I do have that kind of energy after long work hours.
- mgh2 5y ago> Central to their findings was that metabolism differs for all people across four distinct stages of life. There’s infancy, up until age 1, when calorie burning is at its peak, accelerating until it is 50 percent above the adult rate. Then, from age 1 to about age 20, metabolism gradually slows by about 3 percent a year. From age 20 to 60, it holds steady. And, after age 60, it declines by about 0.7 percent a year. *View in pocket to get rid of paywall https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/health/metabolism-weight-aging.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/health/metabolism-weight-...