When people think of computer scientists, they think of someone with bad health, a bad skin color and no fitness at all. While there probably are some like that, I actually don’t know many. Instead I know people who do things like fighting with sword and rapier. My main sports is advanced lindy hop dancing (which does include occasional aerials and such, but mostly involves ‘jumping’ around at high speeds). I like dancing most because of the social aspects of it.

Myselfi, I can claim to be the very opposite: I just came back from 5 hours of sports, and I’m not even exhausted, just very hungry. The 5 hours include riding about 13 km in half an hour through the city (and we’re suffering from a heat wave these days, with winds from the sahara desert reaching germany), then two full training sessions (that really used to stress me when I started), then the ride back of 13 km again.

My body mass index is 18.something, so I’m slightly underweight, but I actually eat a lot - but I also eat healthy and diverse. Most of my food I cook myself, so I know it’s fresh and where I got it from. I’m not vegetarian, I do eat meat about two times a week. I also try to have some variety there, pork, beef, lamb, deer, chicken, … I don’t drink much alcohol and I do not smoke.

So don’t stick to that prejudice that computer science people or geeks are physically in a bad shape. You can be both a geek, soical and athletic. The people I know how are in really bad shape actually watch too much TV and such, they neither engage their body nor their mind, nor leave their house much to meet other people.