The Abandoned

So the Jem'Hadar don't need to eat, yet they grow to adluthood in a few days. Where does all the mass come from? They don't seem to consume nearly enough of that Ketracel White stuff to account for it. Do they suck up gas from the atmosphere and do nuclear reactions to turn it into other elements or something? Maybe it comes from the same place as all the Founder's mass when they grow really big?

Bashir claims that most species which show extremely rapid growth are simple creatures and he's never seen anything like it in anything as complex as a humanoid. Well that may be true, but the medical literature should certainly include at least one example - Deana Troi's son Ian showed hyper-accelerated growth at least comparable to this, and that was only six years prior to this episode. Strange that he never thought to look it up or mention it.