Posted on 03/01/2005 5:42:47 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
CHICAGO - It's no secret that size matters in the National Football League, but a new study suggests that a whopping 56 percent of NFL players would be considered obese by some medical standards.
The NFL called the study bogus for using players' body-mass index, a height-to-weight ratio that doesn't consider body muscle versus fat. The players' union said that despite the familiar sight of bulging football jerseys, there's no proof that obesity is rampant in the league.
But former defensive tackle John Jurkovic said he's seen plenty of evidence that players have gotten not just bigger but sometimes fatter, "big as houses" in recent years because of league pressure to intimidate opponents and win.
"The NFL teams want it because it's working," said Jurkovic, who played for Green Bay, Cleveland and Jacksonville before retiring in 2000.
The theory is that bigger men, especially linemen and defensive players, are better blockers and harder to move.
But the study results suggest that bigger players don't make a team more successful. There was no relationship between teams' average player BMI and their ranking in 2003-04, the season studied. Arizona had the highest average BMI but also the worst record in its division.
In the study, University of North Carolina endocrinologist Dr. Joyce Harp and student Lindsay Hecht used statistics on the NFL Web site to calculate BMIs for 2,168 NFL players, nearly all those playing in the 2003-04 season.
Almost all the players qualified as overweight, and 56 percent had BMIs of at least 30 — what doctors consider obese. For example, a 6-foot-2 man weighing 235 has a BMI of just over 30. Nearly half of the obese players were in the severely obese range, with a BMI of at least 35, and a small percentage were morbidly obese with a BMI of at least 40.
Harp acknowledged that without measuring body composition, it's uncertain how many players were truly fat, but she said it's unlikely the high BMIs were "due to a healthy increase in muscle mass alone."
"The high number of large players was not unexpected, given the pressures of professional athletes to increase their mass. However, it may not be without health consequences," the researchers wrote, citing previous studies that documented obesity-related problems, including sleep apnea and high blood pressure in NFL players.
The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association (news - web sites).
While the study methods were not very scientific, players' growing girth "is a major concern," said Dr. Arthur Roberts, a former NFL quarterback and retired heart surgeon whose Living Heart Foundation works with the players' union to evaluate heart-related health risks faced by current and retired players.
"These larger body sizes are generally associated with greater cardiovascular risks," Roberts said.
The increasing emphasis on size may be a bad influence on "all the young kids that play football around the country ... and are trying to be like their heroes," Roberts said.
Players' union spokesman Carl Francis said health and safety are "discussed all the time," and that while some players likely are obese, it's not a major problem.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello called the study substandard and said there's no proof obesity is worse in the NFL than in U.S. society in general, where about 30 percent of adults are obese, based on BMI data. "This was not a serious medical study," he said.
Dr. Brian Cole of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, an orthopedic surgeon who works with the Arena Football League, also questioned the study methods and said some teams list inaccurately high weights to appear more intimidating.
"While clearly there are pressures for increased size" in professional football, relying on published height and weight data but not physical exams is faulty, he said.
Julie Burns, a nutritionist who works with the Chicago Bears (news), said combining BMI data with players' waist measurements is a better fat indicator because some highly conditioned athletes with a high BMI also have a large amount of lean tissue.
Jurkovic said he weighed 272 in the mid 1990s — hefty by any standards on his 6-foot-2 frame — but was pressured by a coach to get even bigger and ballooned up to 328. On the BMI scale, that's morbidly obese. Jurkovic said he had already maxed out on weightlifting so he packed on mostly fat by gorging.
Combined with the physical toll of football, excess weight wears down joints and causes problems as players age and then retire, Jurkovic said. At 37, he now weighs a "chunky" 295 and has ankle problems he blames on football and excess weight.
"It's tough for the league to police, but I think they should try to police it," he said.
The NFL is doomed! Doomed I tell you! :)
It's the American version of Sumo wrestling.
HBO Sports had a segment on this last year, and I've got to be honest with you -- by the end of that thing I found myself wondering if the NFL is nothing more than the world's largest freak show. I'd love to know what the average life expectancy of an ex-NFL player is these days . . . I wouldn't be surprised if it were somewhere around 55 or so.
What's Congress doing about this?
I'll certainly concede that BMI is an imperfect measure, but I really doubt that the spare tires and love handles hanging out of the waist bands of so many linemen are muscle.
Wow, offensive and defensive linemen are big fat guys? Say it isn't so.
300 pounds is where humans leave off and livestock begins.
Moo
This is from the old series First and Ten.
I was obese most of my life and when I was in my 20s, I was running circles around most skinnier people and even lording it over them, bragging that I could eat as much as I wanted and still be in better shape then them.
Then when I hit my mid-30s, it all started to fall apart. I found myself huffing and puffing just walking up the stairs and I'd break a sweat just walking around the block. Fortunately I got my act together and brought my weight back to normal through rigorous and relentless diet and exercise.
When I see all these massive 300-lb linebackers in the NFL, I see a major obesity problem. I don't care how fast they can do the 40-yard dash. These boys are going to have big problems in a few more years.
I guess it is. I remember when "The Fridge" was talked about as being too obese. Now, he'd be average.
FMCDH(BITS)
right.....some of those lineman are obese pigs......rich ones at that......I hate though that they use the BMI all the time.. Those who workout and eat right blah blah blah have more muscle and are usually fitter.....hell I'm 6' and weigh 200 lbs but i'm only 12% bodyfat butt the BMI says I'm too heavy which is nonsense for the muscle I carry...Football players are much more muscled than that.
Shut up and play the game.
That's crap. 6-2 240 isn't obese, especially for a pro athlete. BMI is a joke. I'm 35, 5-10 220. I've never been fat. I always score at least a 290 on the Army Physical Fitness Test (out of 300). It's all about exercising. Don't stop doing it, ever.
Well. Jimmy Johnson used smaller, faster defensive lineman. His offensive lineman were big and all of them are now retired.
I think the weight comes back to haunt you in the end. Unfortunatey, it comes down to a big paycheck. And it's hard to turn that down. At some point though, you have to think of your health first.
Although the players the doctors call "obese," do have a large amount of fat, their athletic ability is still high. Jevon Kearse, an end for the Eagles, is 6'4", 265 lbs., but runs 40 yds. in 4.4 seconds. To be able to get that much weight moving that fast is mind-boggling. Also, for the offensive linemen that commonly exceed 6'6", 330 lbs.; they are not fat slobs. Most of these men can still run 40 yds. in under 5 seconds, and typically bench press up to 700 lbs. Anyone who can run that fast with that much weight, and bench press twice his weight is not as obese as the average 5'10", 220 lbs. man who never works out we see frequenting McDonald's every day. Granted, these players are not in triathalon shape, but that's not what they're paid to be. They are a different kind of athleticism. I would venture to say that the average NFL offensive lineman is much more athletic than most think, and less "obese" than the average American.
Especially, as you mentioned, Jevon Kearse. That guy barely has an ounce of fat on him. ....even though he tips the scales at 265 (a very light lineman these days).
Really? I bet these folks didn't know the Sun was hot and the Pope was a Catholic either.
Of course, the only problem with this is that I stopped the training regimine, put on 30-35 pounds, and this was a factor in my heart attack. (Not the only factor, by far.) But I'm just saying that depending on the body, 6'2" @ 240 may not be a bad place. Just be careful where you go from there!
(And with that, I'm off to go running, to dump off more weight....)
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