Giving new meaning to the moniker “heavy hitters,” professional baseball players have been 
putting on the pounds. David E. Conroy, Penn State professor of kinesiology, looked at 145 years of data on professional baseball players’ body mass, and found that the athletes’ weight held steady for over 100 years, with the majority of them weighing in at what is considered “normal,” — i.e., with a body mass index (BMI) between 18.5 and 24.9. Then, according to a Penn State news release, around 1991, the average player’s BMI began to rise, and over the last 25 years nearly 80 percent of players fall into the overweight or obese category with a BMI above 25. Obesity in the general U.S. population began to rise in the mid-1970s. The researchers point out that weight increase coincides with baseball’s steroid era, and steroids are known to cause weight gain. But the new pounds also line up with advances in sports science and nutrition, which have enabled athletes to better train and fuel, helping them build muscle and endurance — which could lead to weight gain as well.
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