When it comes to fitness and looks, height-and-weight charts are only part of the story—a lesson on bold display at the Vancouver Olympics. Though the figure skaters may be "sparrow-like," writes Meghan Daum for the Los Angeles Times, most of the women aren't. Bobsledder Elana Meyers is 5-foot-8, 180 pounds; Lindsey Vonn stands 5-foot-10, 165. They are big—and big-time glamorous.
We're not all athletes and the American average, 164 pounds on a 5-foot-4 frame, is "probably too much," Daum says. "Real" women look nothing like muscle-bound Olympians. But everytime we see Vonn or Meyers in action, "we're forced to concede that going down a mountain at breakneck speed, and who knows what else, is not for the faint of heart—or the size 0."
(More weight stories.)