Abstract
Currently available models used for predicting human caloric requirements do not reflect the great variability in activity patterns observed among populations, and are insensitive to important anthropometric, demographic, and environmental variables. They are thus inadequate for application to many populations and problems of anthropological interest. We present a model for determining caloric requirements which more accurately accommodates the effects of variation in activity and in anthropometries on individual needs, and which predicts population requirements based on individual needs and demographic parameters. The model is tested on four populations (the Andean community of Nuñoa, Peru, the Dobe !Kung of Botswana, and two New Guinean villages) and is found to provide consistently better estimates of caloric requirements than are generated by the Food and Agriculture/World Health Organization's model. This model should be useful to anthropologists and human ecologists concerned with problems involving human energy consumption, such as the efficiency of subsistence strategies, optimum family composition, or certain consequences of increased labor migration or technological change.
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This research was supported by a grant from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. Funds for computer time and materials were provided by the State University of New York at Binghamton and The Pennsylvania State University.
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Leslie, P.W., Bindon, J.R. & Baker, P.T. Caloric requirements of human populations: A model. Hum Ecol 12, 137–162 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531270
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531270