Maintaining Muscle Mass while Malnourished

[justgottaknow]

I'm working on a character who is homeless and relies on stealing and cheating just to get by. Obviously, not having a steady/reliable source of food or income (in a small village nonetheless) means they're probably pretty malnourished (at least to the point where their ribs are somewhat visible). The problem comes with the fact that their weapon

Comments

[tabaqui]

It seems like probably not, though i think it would depend on how healthy they were previous to becoming malnourished.

https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(18)30670-4/fulltext

https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12877-017-0505-5

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23247327/

[cattraine]

If you have a good aim you can get as much food with a sling as bow. All you need is a piece of leather and a rock.

[evil_little_dog]

Could the archer have a crossbow? Granted, that takes a little strength to cock but overall, perhaps less upper arm strength.

[anonymous]

Have you considered making your character eat stray cats, dogs, foxes? Also, if they rise early in the morning, there might be food to be pinched from the deliveries that supermarkets get. Or at least, that is something our supermarkets complained of, here in Austria, at some point. Other food sources would be flower beds, if there are not too bad herbicides, pesticides etc. in use. Also, hazelnuts, walnuts and fruits might grow in parks. If your character is knowledgeable regarding plants, that would really influence their possibilities, putting less known mushrooms, grasses and roots on the menu.

I think one really big concern is salt. Your character needs a source of salt. However, if you have a farmer with cows or goats, there could be a salt licking stone, which would solve your problem.

[holde_maid]

whoops, sorry, forgot to log in. That was me. :)

[anonymous]

Y'all. Malnourished people do heavy labor all the time. In agriculture, mining, etc throughout the historically looted societies of the world