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<blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 3395785" data-attributes="member: 7533">A long time ago, I had a short essay that used this idea to (kind of pseudo-scientifically) explain why halflings seem to eat so much.A long story short, the idea is that much of the caloric intake of any warm-blooded creture goes into simply maintaining that creature's body temperature.&nbsp; The primary means of losing body heat is through the skin, and so, ignoring other complicating factors for the moment, the amount of calories required to maintain body temperature should be roughly proportional to the surface area of skin.So, we take a human and proportionally shrink him to one half his height to make a halfling.&nbsp; The amount of food he needs to maintain his body temperature decreases by the square (surface area of the skin) -- 1/2^2 = 1/4 -- but the amount of food his stomach can hold decreases by the cube (volume of the stomach) -- 1/2^3 = 1/8.So, an average halfling needs only about one fourth as much food as a human to maintain his body temperature, but his stomach can only hold about one eighth as much food...&nbsp; Which means they'll need to eat twice as many meals as a typical human would, even though they only need a quarter the food a human needs overall.&nbsp; Plus, it explains why one day's worth of trail rations (or water) for a small sized creature weighs only one-quarter the amount of trail rations for a day necessary for medium-sized creatures.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pbartender, post: 3395785, member: 7533"] A long time ago, I had a short essay that used this idea to (kind of pseudo-scientifically) explain why halflings seem to eat so much. A long story short, the idea is that much of the caloric intake of any warm-blooded creture goes into simply maintaining that creature's body temperature. The primary means of losing body heat is through the skin, and so, ignoring other complicating factors for the moment, the amount of calories required to maintain body temperature should be roughly proportional to the surface area of skin. So, we take a human and proportionally shrink him to one half his height to make a halfling. The amount of food he needs to maintain his body temperature decreases by the square (surface area of the skin) -- 1/2^2 = 1/4 -- but the amount of food his stomach can hold decreases by the cube (volume of the stomach) -- 1/2^3 = 1/8. So, an average halfling needs only about one fourth as much food as a human to maintain his body temperature, but his stomach can only hold about one eighth as much food... Which means they'll need to eat twice as many meals as a typical human would, even though they only need a quarter the food a human needs overall. Plus, it explains why one day's worth of trail rations (or water) for a small sized creature weighs only one-quarter the amount of trail rations for a day necessary for medium-sized creatures. [/QUOTE]

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