• Question: How many calories would Bruce Wayne have to consume each day so he could have enough energy to be batman?

    Asked by Syvester McCoy to Andrew, Dan, Emilia, Helen, Katy, LauraAnne, Stephanie on 11 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Dan Gordon

      Dan Gordon answered on 11 Nov 2016:

      What an interesting question. Lets try and be scientific about this. We will assume that Bruce Wayne has a regular body mass (without wearing the bat suit), this means he would need an average intake of calories for everyday metabolism. Now we have to factor in the suit. We need to take a guess on how much the suit weighs, my recollection from the films was that it was designed to be light weight, so lets assume it weighs 10Kg. We also need to factor in how long he is going to wear this for, so we will assume its a busy night in Gotham City so lets go with 6 hours. With this basic information we can estimate that he would need to consume an additional 2,068 calories. To do this I am assuming he is burning ~67% carbohydrates and has increased his oxygen consumption by 2 l.min-1

    • Photo: LauraAnne Furlong

      LauraAnne Furlong answered on 12 Nov 2016:

      Interestingly, soldiers on the battlefield and in training have to carry additional weight like Batman too, anywhere between 27 and 45 kg. To help the soldiers’ bodies cope with this extra weight, and to help them to be able to perform at their best for longer, the US military have funded lots of research at Harvard University to design a wearable, lightweight suit that helps the soldier to cope with this additional weight and gives the muscles a helping boost when needed – hopefully this link works for you (but if not, check out DARPA WarriorWeb on Youtube):

      They also funded developing a jet pack which soldiers could use too, and that is at Arizona State University in the US (called DARPA testing jetpack for soldiers):

      When they test these devices, they also measure how much energy they save or not, so it is possible that because Bruce Wayne has his science research department (and the large amount of money needed to develop this kit!), he might not need as many more calories as we would originally think if the kit worked as it should…

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