Dieting, portion size, and height

In My Humble Opinion
1

When dieting, how come portions are independent of height?

I need to lose weight. I’ve already lost a stone this year, but I’ve a long way to go. I’m currently ~125 kg and want to get to 95 kg. I need to exercise more but also manage what I eat. But when it comes to the latter, it seems to me that the taller the person, the more that person needs to eat. So why is the recommended calorie intake the same for someone 150 cm as someone 193 cm (me)? It seems to me that with such an intake I would experience a much more rapid - perhaps even unhealthily rapid - weight loss and be more likely to give in to hunger pangs. Since volume and therefore mass is proportional to the cube of height, basic maths indicates an intake of about double that of someone 150 cm tall. Granted that’s simplistic and likely over-eggs the case but it demonstrates the point that shorter people should eat less than recommended and taller people more. Or do they?

So, what’s the Straight Dope?

2

Height is mostly irrelevant. Your weight helps estimate your basal metabolism which in turn helps calculate how many calories you should eat in a day for weight loss targets. Many programs, like Weight Watchers, take you weight into account for calculating your allowance for each day. If your program uses your current weight as an input you should be fine.

Otherwise, you’re correct that a bigger person should have a larger calorie intake than a smaller person to affect the same weight loss. But the difference isn’t that big in the grand scheme of things unless you are far away from the norm.