Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
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Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#2Clickbait 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.”
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#3It is known that training a deep neural net consume much more energy than inferencing it.
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#4> 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.
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#5Clickbait 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 Herm…
You sure picked the wrong quotes to make your point didn't you? It's like you're arguing with yourself
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#6> 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.
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#7Are 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.
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#8Personally, 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
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#9Seems 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
Re: Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds
#10I’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!