How much we eat vs. how much we need

Calorie intake has been found to fluctuate massively depending on a person's age, so how many calories should we be consuming a day?

Calories are a measure of how much energy is contained in food or drink. When something is labelled as containing 100 calories, it's a way of describing how much energy your body would get from eating or drinking it.

While the widely accepted rule of thumb is to eat 2,000 calories a day for women and 2,500 calories for men, age can drastically influence how calories affect weight. This is because, on average, we use less energy as we get older, and so we should eat less. We don’t always adjust soon enough though.

What’s age got to do with it?

Your ideal daily intake of calories varies depending on how old you are, your metabolism, how much you exercise, your height and your current weight, so age alone should not be used to determine how many calories you will need a day. But it can give a rough indication, based on the latest research.

Researchers at UCLA have analysed four years worth of data from the US Department for Health and Human Services to find out how age affects how many calories you can consume to maintain a healthy weight, factoring in whether a person’s lifestyle is active, moderate or sedentary, before cross-referencing the figures with age to gain the most accurate results.

Sedentary is basically no physical activity other than to accomplish daily living, moderate is the equivalent of walking 1.5 to 3 miles per day, and active is anything more than that.

Women with sedentary lifestyles should aim to consume 1,800 calories per day between the age of 25 and 30, before this drops to 1,600 from the age of 50 onwards. For women with active lifestyles, calorie consumption can be as high as 2,400 per day between 20 and 30, before dropping to 2,000 from the age of 60.

Men with sedentary lifestyles can consume a much higher calorie intake ranging from 2,400 calories between 25 and 30, before dropping to 2,000 from the age of 60. Men with active lifestyles can eat up to 3,000 a day in their twenties, before dropping to 2,600 once they reach 60 years of age.

If you want to know exactly how many calories you need, you need to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).