人類體型在不斷變大 食物供應將面臨更大壓力
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.
大家都知道，在美國和許多其他國家，肥胖是一個主要的健康危機，但人類不僅在變胖，整體上也在變高大。Humans are getting larger and larger and the average person is now significantly taller than the averages of decades past. On top of that, we eat more and that's bad news for planet Earth.
人類正變得越來越高大，普通人的身高比過去幾十年的平均身高要高得多。最重要的是，這意味着我們要吃得更多，這對地球來說絕對不是什麼好消息。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.
挪威科技大學的研究人員進行的一項新研究表明，人類的營養需求正在穩步攀升，這不僅僅是因爲人類的數量在不斷增加。
Larger people need to eat more and as humans get larger, that's going to put additional strain on food supplies.
體型較大的人需要吃更多，而隨着人類變高大，這將給食物供應帶來額外的壓力。
"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."
挪威科技大學工業生態項目的紀伯倫·維塔在一份聲明中表示：“我們研究了兩種現象所帶來的影響。其中一個是人類的平均身高和體重都有所增加；第二個是平均人口正在變老。”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.
數據顯示，人類的整體身高比1975年時增加了1.5%，體重也增加了14%。由於人類壽命更長，平均年齡也比1975年高出6%以上。Crunching the numbers, the scientists figure that this means the average person needs around six percent more food energy than they did back then.
通過分析這些數據，科學家們得出結論，即平均每人需要的食物能量比那個時候要高出近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.
在同一時間段內，人類食物的總消費量飆升了129%，其中大約116%的增長來自於人口的增長，另外15%來自於人類平均變高大了。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.
爲此，人類已經開始在努力維持世界許多地區的糧食供應，特別是發展中國家的糧食供應，而隨着每一代人的食物消費量的增長，這些問題將只會變得越來越嚴重。The solution? Well, we don't really have one yet.
至於有什麼解決方案嗎？我們目前還真沒有。
