Evolutionary Anthropologist Busts Myths About How Humans Burn Calories

Herman Pontzer, a biological anthropologist at the Pontzer lab at Duke University, works with his colleagues to "systematically measure the total energy used per day by animals and people in various walks of life," reports Science.org. "The answers coming from their data are often surprising: Exercise doesn't help you burn more energy on average; active hunter-gatherers in Africa don't expend more energy daily than sedentary office workers in Illinois; pregnant women don't burn more calories per day than other adults, after adjusting for body mass." Here's an excerpt from the report: Pontzer's skill as a popularizer can rankle some of his colleagues. His message that exercise won't help you lose weight "lacks nuance," says exercise physiologist John Thyfault of the University of Kansas Medical Center, who says it may nudge dieters into less healthy habits. But others say besides busting myths about human energy expenditure, Pontzer's work offers a new lens for understanding human physiology and evolution. As he wrote in Burn, "In the economics of life, calories are the currency." "His work is revolutionary," says paleoanthropologist Leslie Aiello, past president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, which has funded Pontzer's work. "We now have data ... that has given us a completely new framework for how we think about how humans adapted to energetic limits."

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