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'The big surprise is it hasn't,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'What we've learnt is that we burn the same number of calories every day regardless of lifestyle. Our lifestyle determines how we burn them.'
He added: 'Even within industrialised societies, people who are more active don't burn more calories every day, even that's what we're always told.'
The scientist explained that people who are more active do burn more calories on exercise, but are spending less energy on 'other stuff' such as immune functioning.
Professor Herman Pontzer claims people should focus on diet because everyone burns the same number of calories regardless of our activity levels