The relation between freely chosen meals and body habitus

By bomb calorimetry, we conducted a 7-day study of the energy contents of the freely chosen meals of 11 male subjects under their ordinary living conditions. Their body weights ranged from 60 to 99 kg and Quetelet indices ranged from 211 to 271 X 10(-5). Despite the wide range of body weight, there was no relation between daily energy intake and body weight, height, or Quetelet index. However the thickset subjects took diets and meals with higher energy density than the lean subjects (p less than 0.05 one-tailed for diets, p less than 0.025 one-tailed for meals). On average, the energy of lunch and dinner contributed 26 and 44% of daily energy, respectively. There was a significant negative relation between the energy of lunch and that of dinner (p less than 0.01), but no significant association between weight of lunch and that of dinner (p greater than 0.1).