Men tend to burn more energy at rest, but other factors also carry weight

‘Generally speaking, yes,” says Bethan Crouse, a performance nutritionist from Loughborough University, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all rule. Humans burn calories to fuel everything from movement to sleeping. For the general adult population aged from about 19 to 64, guidance puts daily energy needs at about 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men (the requirements are very different in children and adolescents, and tend to fall with age: they decline between 65 and 74, and drop again after 75). But averages hide a lot of variation.

One of the main reasons men typically need more calories is that they usually have a higher resting (or basal) metabolic rate, meaning they burn more energy at rest. This is largely explained by differences in body composition – on average, men have more lean muscle mass, while women tend to have a higher proportion of body fat – and muscle burns more calories than fat.