人類正變得越來(lái)越高大長(zhǎng)壽

Everyone knows that obesity is a major health crisis in the United States and many other countries, but humans aren’t just getting fatter, we’re also getting bigger overall. Humans are getting larger and larger and the average person is now significantly taller than the averages of decades past.

大家都知道，在美國(guó)和許多其他國(guó)家，肥胖是一個(gè)主要的健康危機(jī)，但人類不僅在變胖，整體上也在變高大。人類正變得越來(lái)越高大，普通人的身高比過(guò)去幾十年的平均身高要高得多。

On top of that, we eat more and that’s bad news for planet Earth.

除此之外，我們吃得更多了，這對(duì)地球來(lái)說(shuō)是個(gè)壞消息。

A new study conducted by researchers with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) reveals that the nutritional demands for the human race are steadily climbing and not just because there’s more of us. Larger people need to eat more and as humans get larger, that’s going to put additional strain on food supplies.

挪威科技大學(xué)的研究人員進(jìn)行的一項(xiàng)新研究表明，人類的營(yíng)養(yǎng)需求正在穩(wěn)步攀升，這不僅僅是因?yàn)槿祟惖臄?shù)量在不斷增加。體型較大的人需要吃更多，而隨著人類變高大，這將給食物供應(yīng)帶來(lái)額外的壓力。

“We studied the effects of two phenomena,” Gibran Vita of NTNU’s Industrial Ecology Programme said in a statement. “One is that people on average have become taller and heavier. The second is that the average population is getting older.”

挪威科技大學(xué)工業(yè)生態(tài)項(xiàng)目的紀(jì)伯倫.維塔在一份聲明中表示:“我們研究了兩種現(xiàn)象的影響。其中一個(gè)原因是人們的平均身高和體重都有所增加。第二，平均人口正在變老。”

According to the data, humans are now around one-and-a-half percent taller overall than we were in 1975, as well as 14 percent heavier. Because the human population is living longer, the average age is also over six percent higher than it was in 1975. Crunching the numbers, the scientists figure that this means the average person needs around six percent more food energy than they did back then.

數(shù)據(jù)顯示，人類的整體身高比1975年增加了1.5%，體重也增加了14%。由于人類壽命更長(zhǎng)，平均年齡也比1975年高出6%以上。通過(guò)分析這些數(shù)據(jù)，科學(xué)家們得出結(jié)論，這意味著普通人需要的食物能量要比1975年高出6%左右。

Over that same time frame, overall human food consumption spiked by a whopping 129 percent, with approximately 116 percent of that growth coming from population increases and the other 15 percent stemming from humans being larger on average. Humans are already struggling with maintaining food supplies in many areas of the world, especially developing countries and those issues are only going to get worse as each generation consumes more and more.

在同一時(shí)間段內(nèi)，人類食物的總消費(fèi)量飆升了129%，其中大約116%的增長(zhǎng)來(lái)自于人口的增長(zhǎng)，另外15%來(lái)自于人類平均變高大了。人類已經(jīng)在努力維持世界許多地區(qū)的糧食供應(yīng)了，特別是發(fā)展中國(guó)家的糧食供應(yīng)。隨著每一代人消耗得越來(lái)越多，這些問(wèn)題只會(huì)變得越來(lái)越嚴(yán)重。

The solution? Well, we don’t really have one yet.

有解決方案嗎?我們目前還真沒(méi)有。