Originally Posted by
tjspiel
Just curious as to why you come to that conclusion. It might well be true but it surprises me some.
I'm not surprised that an average European would be in better shape than an average American, but I think an average American bike commuter would be in much better shape your average US citizen.
I've also heard that athletes sweat more in general than non-athletes though that might well be a myth. However if true, being in shape wouldn't necessarily mean you sweat less than somebody else, you may in fact sweat more.
I think that if you collected the BMI of the average American bike commuters on this forum and the average European cyclist, that the BMI of the average European cyclist would be 20%+ less than the American counterpart.
Unfortunately, I don't think we have a large enough sample size to collect the European component of the metric. In addition, BMI isn't the best metric, but it is perhaps the easiest.
I also think you'd observe a coastal (50 miles from the either ocean) versus inland bias within the US subset (coastal being lower BMI) and a northern/southern split (above or below the 40°) with the southern component being roughly higher in BMI.