Watching a movie where survivors of a plane crash are on life rafts for more then 30 days. (Broken) Little food and water. In a scenario like this who would survive longer without food, a fat person or a skinny one?
I’m assuming the heavier person would because they have more reserved the body can draw from. But maybe the skinny guy would care better. I really am curious.
The skinny person. They have a bigger food supply.
Mmmm, cannibalism…
In most starvation scenarios, the real answer is whoever has the most muscle. Protein reserves usually fuel survival activities.
But in the lifeboat scenario i think it would go to the fat person, because fat cells release water when they are used. So that should buy a few hours or a couple of days for the overweight person.
There is no cannibalism in the Royal Navy!
“little food and water”
The critical issue here is water. Anyone remember hearing about Bobby Sands:
Sands died on 5 May 1981 in the Maze’s prison hospital after 66 days on hunger strike, aged 27.
Conversely a few days without water will leave you dead.
The longest known fast was just over a year, 382 days, although under close medical supervision, back in 1965. A guy named Angus (really) Barbieri drank only water and electrolytes, vitamins, losing several hundred pounds. I thought it “interesting” that he averaged a bowel movement only once every month or so.
In strict terms of fat or calorie stores alone, clearly the obese individual has the skinny person beat. With a sudden or an involuntary long survival situation maybe there are some complications.
As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in this area.
Assume water is adequate.
The complicating factor is in the circumstance of having to move. Say walking somewhere. The obese individual is also burning more calories moving that mass and some of that will come from fat free mass stores. Get low enough on skeletal muscle stores and you break down organ tissue including heart muscle.
It may be that the obese person drives down skeletal muscle to that point sooner by more calories out even though they have more calories stored.
True. But in the OPs scenario they are just sitting in a lifeboat. If we assume adequate water, then the obese person still wins. An obese person who is at all mobile probably has substantially more protein reserves than a “skinny” person. The OP does not say “fit.”
It’s easy to forget that being obese is like spending your whole day with a 100lb weight vest on. Your legs will have more lifting power than a skinny person does. So in terms of reserves, i think obese still wins.
Fair points made.