Re: Reducing Bodyfat

Van Bagnol <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>  "DRS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

[...]

>> I'm most curious about it.  At the very least it's counterintuitive.
>> Where did all that food come from?
>
> Why would it be counterintuitive? (A) the population was smaller, (B)
> the economy was still highly agrarian, (C) labor was much more
> physical and less sedentary.

Point A is neither here nor there.  Fewer people simply means fewer people
to work the fields.  Point B misses the fact that farming was vastly less
efficient than it is today.  Point C is the only given.  Taken together it
is intuitively true that people had on average less access to food than we
do today.

> According to physical activity tables, hunting and farming activities
> are about 5-6 times the resting metabolic rate. That works out to
> perhaps 300-400 kcal/hour, so 2000 kcal BMR + 2000 kcal from exertion
> works out to 5-7 hours of farm labor a day. Seems plausible.

That's if they're working more or less solidly.  In any event, the model I
see is more in keeping with the under-developed agrarian nations of today:
scrawny, over-worked, malnourished individuals who stay alive in apparent
defiance of the laws of energy consumption and expenditure.

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