Winter girth and professional sports

Pardon me for recycling posts, but I developed this out of a comment I left on a friends post, and realized it was so long, I may as well post it to my won blog

Between watching my Top Chef and hitting the gym less this winter, I've been thinking about weight a bit lately. But a recent discussion on the ruling in Spain that models must have at least x amount of body fat to be allowed to walk the runway has gotten me thinking about the opposite end of that spectrum, especially in sports. The roomie and I have had a good deal of conversations about the need to institute a maximum weight in professional football, or at least the college game.

I suppose with the pros you can at least make the argument that they're paid a minimum of 6 figures (and that minimum becomes in the 7 figures pretty quickly) and they're adults, so they can do whatever they want to get that kind of money. Of course, their life expectancy drops to 55, but that's the risk you take, I suppose.

But college players earn no money, which makes it harder to accept them putting themselves in such dangerously unhealthy body types. For example, at the 1-AA (a/k/a Championship subdivision) University of Northern Iowa, the linemen are just as big as any at major school, but they have a significantly less likely chance of earning those millions. After all, obscure regional universities in Iowa can only produce so many 2-time NFL and Super Bowl MVPs.

But unlike the old days when linemen were my size (nowadays kickers outweigh me, a college lineman has put himself in the way of so many obesity-related body problems, they have all of the risks of the pros, but none of the financial benefits.

Or perhaps they're all just putting on winter weight, too...