The Seldom Seen Overweight Athlete: Newcastle United's Sol Campbell’s Recent Pictures Spark Debate
Athletes are supposed to be lean, fit and be in great shape. Well, most of them are. Overweight athletes are a rare phenomenon in the world of sports, but they are out there. From football to baseball to basketball, a lot of sports have players that are on the heavier side. What is so interesting about this situation is that even though they are overweight, these athletes are very adept at their sports. A recent picture of Sol Campbell, Newcastle United’s new signing, brought the focus of overweight athletes back into people’s minds. Some consider that the way eating trends are going today, overweight athletes might be the norm in a few years.
A recent picture of Sol Campbell not looking his healthiest has been causing a stir among Newcastle’s fans. Sol was recently signed to the club and was snapped with what looked like a pretty well maintained beer belly. This on a footballer was too much for the fans of the club to bear, and they spoke out heavily against it, forcing Sol to make a statement saying that he had just gotten married and been on a honeymoon so had packed on a few extra pounds. He claims to be in training everyday to get back in shape. The problem in this situation is the fact that Sol Campbell was a recent signing and is yet to prove himself at the club. If he had been around for a few seasons and had been performing consistently well then the story would be different, but being a new signing, his lack of form has made sceptics out of a lot of fans.
The thing to consider with athletes is that a lot of the taller ones tend to be heavier than their shorter counterparts. However, it still does not excuse some of the really overweight ones out there. Baseball has a few players who are on the bigger side than most of the other people playing the game. CC Sabathia is a recent World Series winning pitcher and he stands an impressive 6 foot 7 inches tall and tips the scales at a hefty 290 pounds. While that is a lot of weight, it has not seemed to affect his performance, as he is, after all, a championship winning baseball player. David Wells is another baseball player on the large side, the very large side. He weighs 225 pounds and is 6 foot 4 inches tall. But once again like CC, he is a former World Series winner and a three time All-Star. It looks as if being overweight has absolutely no effect on the way these players play in their sports.
Moving to basketball, we see a couple of examples in front of us. One of the larger basketball players out there was Charles Barkley. Playing for the Phoenix Suns, he regularly stepped onto the court weighing an impressive 225 pounds. Again, this did nothing to stop his playing abilities because he was only one of four players to have 20,000 points, 12,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists during his career. It might be that the extra bulk helped him get so many rebounds. He was also a one-time NBA MVP, 11-time All-Star, one-time NBA All-Star MVP and two-time Olympic Gold medallist. The other big man of the NBA is Shaquille O’Neal. This phenomenally talented athlete is a powerhouse of a player but he was also on the overweight side. A lot of his opponents said he was too tall and too heavy to guard against.
Overweight athletes seem to face serious health risks. They are affected a lot more by health issues than their svelte counterparts. Some of the things that can affect an overweight athlete are heat illness, asthma, sudden cardiac arrest, and musculoskeletal trauma, as well as cardiovascular problems and osteoarthritis when their sporting days are over. The general consensus amongst doctors is that overweight athletes should get a certified health check-up and start a training and fitness programme that will help them achieve their optimal weight. It becomes dangerous when young people, who look up to their favourite overweight athlete, think they, too, can be overweight and become a famous athlete and start to pile on the pounds. It usually happens that they lose interest in sports but still have a weight issue to deal with.
Even though overweight athletes are not that common, they do exist and are surprisingly good at their sport. However, it becomes even harder for an overweight person to excel at a sport and they then have to be phenomenally talented to make a name for themselves. Hopefully, the concept of the overweight athlete will diminish over the coming years and the obesity trend will see a decline.
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