Comment by lo_zamoyski

The nerd/jock dichotomy is rooted in envy.

There is an unspoken presumption many people live believing that the various qualities people can have must be evenly divided among people, because somehow it would otherwise be “unfair”. Got brawn? Can’t have brains. Got X? Can’t have Y. Etc. It’s a coping strategy for weak people with big egos.

The fact is that in primary school, a “nerd” wasn’t necessarily all that “intelligent” even in some narrow sense. If you are inept at something or insecure about it, you might gravitate toward things that avoid it. So you invest time in that activity.

Of course, if the brain is the seat of intelligence, and the brain is just a part of the body, and an intelligent brain is a healthy brain, then it follows that a healthy body overall is more likely to have a healthy brain and thus an intelligent brain. Conpare this with the ancient expression “Mens sana in corpore sano”.