NHS study calls 26 Premier League players overweight

Ivanovic, Terry and Zouma all made the list

A study from Britain’s National Health Survey (NHS) suggested that 26 current Premier League players are overweight, as reported by Manchester Evening News. Quite a few individuals representing top teams including Chelsea and the two Manchester sides are on that list, which is topped by Norwich’s Martin Olsson.

he NHS is a body that takes care of the publicly funded healthcare systems in the countries consisting of the United Kingdom. They used Body Mass Index (BMI) to see if players’ weight was healthy in relation to their height. A BMI score of 25 or higher would indicate that the individual needs to lose weight. However, there is a flaw in the system that it does not distinguish between muscle and fat when the weight is measured.

Three Chelsea players make it to the list, all three of them are from their defensive line – Kurt Zouma, captain John Terry and vice-captain Branislav Ivanovic. Surprisingly, Diego Costa who admitted to being overweight at the start of the season isn’t on this list.

Manchester City’s Wilfried Bony and Yaya Toure also made the list, the latter perhaps from his love of cake! Another player from the Manchester region makes the list as the Red Devils’ new import Memphis Depay also features among the 26 names.

Jokes apart, they all seem fit individuals of a similar tall and muscular body structure, which seems to have hit the BMI loophole on the dot. Other notable names that make the list are Romelu Lukaku, Xherdan Shaqiri and Shinji Okazaki. The clearest indication that the study is flawed is that no player on the list is shorter than 1.7 metres, making for a very skewed trend leading to false assumptions.

Frankly, only a few names on the list are likely to be overweight, so anyone going over this list should take it with a pinch of salt, because few top class athletes are would take liberties with their fitness as their livelihood depends on it.

Here is the full list:

Players	Height (metres)	Weight (kg)	BMI
Martin Olsson	1.7	81	28
Darren Randolph	1.88	98	27.7
Fraizer Campbell	1.72	82	27.7
Wes Morgan	1.85	93	27.2
Darron Gibson	1.83	90	26.9
Branislav Ivanovic	1.85	91	26.6
Ryan Bertrand	1.79	85	26.5
John Ruddy	1.93	97	26
Romelu Lukaku	1.9	94	26
Danny Graham	1.83	87	26
John Terry	1.87	90	25.7
Kurt Zouma	1.9	92	25.5
Steven Whittaker	1.85	87	25.4
Wilfried Bony	1.82	84	25.4
Micah Richards	1.8	82	25.3
Michail Antonio	1.8	82	25.3
Jeremain Lens	1.78	80	25.2
Brad Guzan	1.93	94	25.2
Xherdan Shaqiri	1.69	72	25.2
Yaya Toure	1.89	90	25.2
Memphis Depay	1.76	78	25.2
Tim Howard	1.87	88	25.2
Wes Hoolahan	1.68	71	25.2
Dimitri Payet	1.75	77	25.1
Shinji Okazaki	1.74	76	25.1
Michel Vorm	1.83	84	25.1