Premature babies

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Premature babies

by jain2016 » Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:47 am
Premature babies who receive regular massages are more active than premature babies who do not. Even when all the babies drink the same amount of milk, the massaged babies gain more weight than do the unmassaged babies. This is puzzling because a more active person generally requires a greater food intake to maintain or gain weight.

Which of the following, if true, best reconciles the apparent discrepancy described above?

A) Increased activity leads to increased levels of hunger, especially when food intake is not also increased.

B) Massage increases premature babies' curiosity about their environment, and curiosity leads to increased activity.

C) Increased activity causes the intestines of premature babies to mature more quickly, enabling the babies to digest and absorb more of the nutrients in the milk they drink.

D) Massage does not increase the growth rate if the babies over one year old, if the babies had not been previously massaged.

E) Premature babies require a daily intake of nutrients that is significantly higher than that required by babies who were not born prematurely.

OAC

Hi Experts please explain.

Many thanks in advance.

SJ
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by MartyMurray » Fri Apr 15, 2016 10:20 pm
You are looking for something that explains how or why a more active premature baby would gain more weight than a less active premature baby.

(A) Because the prompt says that food intake is the same for all the babies, level of hunger is irrelevant, as increased hunger does not lead to increased food intake.

(B) This does not seem to have a link to weight gain. That having been said, if you were to see this answer choice on the test, you might not want to throw it out right away, as often an answer choice that initially seems to not have any connection to the question turns out to be the correct answer.

(C) This explains the weight gain. Active babies may not take in more food than less active babies do, and active babies may burn more calories, BUT because the intestines of more active babies are such that more active babies absorb more food than less active babies do, effectively the more active babies are getting more nutrition. So the difference in absorption explains the difference in weight gain.

(D) This does not explain why massage, and the resulting activity, are correlated with increased weight.

(E) The prompt and question discuss only premature babies, and what this answer choice says does not explain anything having to do with differences in the weights of premature babies who have different levels of activity.

The correct answer is C.
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