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Sean Manning
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 Posted: Tue 05 May, 2009 10:53 am Post subject: |
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| Mark Millman wrote: | Dear Mr. Manning,
| On Mon 04 May 2009, you wrote: | | I'm not sure what to think about the Hurstvic study since it doesn't give any explanations of why its hypothetical height, body weight, and summer work schedule are reasonable. For example, when does their hypothetical Norseman rest and eat? |
I don't know what the conventions for this type of nutritional study may be, but they probably influenced the example's body mass and schedule, and seem likely to be available on line. To address your specific question, Hurstwic's hypothetical subject must eat and rest during the three hours of "general activity" that the study description mentions.
Best,
Mark Millman |
But if you're resting or eating, you generally aren't doing anything active, eh? From what I know of labourers in high medieval England, they took an hour and a half or two hours off in mid-day for a meal and a nap, and sometimes other breaks. The article doesn't give references to justify its assumptions, and it doesn't explain why it chose them in the text. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm saying I don't know enough to tell if its right. I think a nutritional analysis like that is a promising approach, though!
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Ian Hutchison
Location: Louisiana / Nordrhein-Westholland Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 625
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| Posted: Tue 05 May, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Sean Manning wrote: | | Mark Millman wrote: | Dear Mr. Manning,
| On Mon 04 May 2009, you wrote: | | I'm not sure what to think about the Hurstvic study since it doesn't give any explanations of why its hypothetical height, body weight, and summer work schedule are reasonable. For example, when does their hypothetical Norseman rest and eat? |
I don't know what the conventions for this type of nutritional study may be, but they probably influenced the example's body mass and schedule, and seem likely to be available on line. To address your specific question, Hurstwic's hypothetical subject must eat and rest during the three hours of "general activity" that the study description mentions.
Best,
Mark Millman |
But if you're resting or eating, you generally aren't doing anything active, eh? From what I know of labourers in high medieval England, they took an hour and a half or two hours off in mid-day for a meal and a nap, and sometimes other breaks. The article doesn't give references to justify its assumptions, and it doesn't explain why it chose them in the text. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm saying I don't know enough to tell if its right. I think a nutritional analysis like that is a promising approach, though! |
Yes, it would be nice to know why they chose an individual with the values they did. They were probably just those of the person conducting the analysis. It would have been better if they had chosen the values based off of mean of values from period male remains. For instance, I'm almost certain 180cm would be quite tall for the time. However, it is very difficult to determine weight based off of skeletal remains. You can tell what a persons diet was strong in from bone analysis and can examine weight related wear but other than that I don't believe you can accurately determine what an individuals mass would have been.
'We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose.' - Adrian Carton de Wiart
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Mark Millman
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| Posted: Tue 05 May, 2009 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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Dear Mr. Manning,
| On Tuesday 5 May 2009, you wrote: | | But if you're resting or eating, you generally aren't doing anything active, eh? From what I know of labourers in high medieval England, they took an hour and a half or two hours off in mid-day for a meal and a nap, and sometimes other breaks. The article doesn't give references to justify its assumptions, and it doesn't explain why it chose them in the text. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm saying I don't know enough to tell if its right. I think a nutritional analysis like that is a promising approach, though! |
Well, we know that in this example the basal metabolism consumes 1800 Kcal/day--that's doing absolutely nothing except maintaining weight, so no thinking, talking, moving, etc.--it's just keeping the heart beating, the lungs working, and so forth. Sleeping probably consumes a comparable amount of energy. When one eats one clearly does more work. And when resting it's rare to be totally inert; what we're calling "rest" probably includes minor tasks that can be done while sitting, or conversation, or the like. My guess is that the "general activity" category is designed to include this sort of occupation.
Like you, I'd like to see more specifics. But as this sort of analysis is inevitably an estimate, and potentially a fairly loose one, I'm not sure that having that extra specificity would really make much difference. And while dieticians or nutritional anthropologists might be able to interpret a very specific and detailed analysis, that's not the context in which this one appears.
Best,
Mark Millman
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