Calorie Burning Between Humans and Primates

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Studies have shown that hunting and gathering populations such as Hazda in Tanzania have similar daily expenditures with Westerners. This is despite the Hazda living more physically active lives than Westerners who live sedentary lifestyles. This has been proven by experiments using the doubly labeled water method. Comparisons were made between various rural populations in developing countries and city dwellers in the developed world. The findings revealed that humans burn the same level of calories regardless of their physical activity levels. This situation is also similar in animals with experiments showing primates in captive burn the same calorie levels with those in the wild (Pontzer, 2017. Further analyses indicate that humans burn more calories than their ape relatives.
Since physical exercise doesn’t increase the rate of calorie burning, it does have a positive impact on the brain's cognitive function. It helps promote the production of the protein Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which aids cognitive ability. Also, aerobic exercises aid i...