Evolutionary Biology of Energy Balance

Show notes here

Evoultionary biologist Dr. Herman Pontzer of Hunter College discusses the model of contrained energy expenditure and the metabolic adaptations that accompany high levels of physical activity.

Dr. Pontzer is an associate professor at the Department of Anthropology, Hunter College & City University of New York. He is an evolutionary biologist with a PhD in Biological Anthropology from Harvard University. He has published seminal work in the area of energetics, including viewing human energy expenditure via a model of constrained total energy expenditure. He s truly a world-class leader in this field and has been repeatedly recognized internationally for his research.

In This Episode We Discuss:

Constrained vs. Additive model of total energy expenditure The physical activity paradox: Do highly active populations actually burn more calories? Why NEAT, movement efficiency and other metabolic adaptations can't fully explain the paradox Why did we evolve this way? Why are human capable of expending so much energy in acute time frames?