Basic trope: Geeks and nerds are not strong or athletic and either really skinny or fat.
- Straight:
- Bob is geeky and overweight.
- Charlie is geeky and thin.
- Alice is geeky and either gangly or overweight.
- Exagerrated:
- Bob is morbidly obese.
- Charlie is Nothing but Skin and Bones.
- Every single geek or nerd is either thin or overweight.
- Downplayed:
- Bob has a slight gut.
- Charlie is very slim, but has some slight muscle definition.
- Justified:
- Bob has a sedentary job, making it difficult for him to lose weight.
- Bob's metabolism is slower, compared to when he was younger, so his sedentary job makes it even more difficult for him to lose weight.
- Bob is genetically predisposed to gain weight easily and struggle to lose weight.
- To Charlie, Crack is Cheaper so he only spends the bare minimum on food to survive.
- Charlie is so engrossed in his research/hobbies that he doesn't eat very often.
- Charlie's genes mean he neither gains weight nor builds muscle easily.
- Bob and/or Charlie don't have the opportunity to exercise as much due to having conditions such as asthma.
- Inverted:
- Bob and Charlie are as muscular as bodybuilders.
- Charlie has a lean yet fit dancer's physique instead of being gangly.
- Alice's buxom hourglass physique makes her a head-turner even outside of nerd circles.
- Alice is a nerdy Amazonian Beauty.
- Subverted:
- Bob loses weight.
- Charlie gains weight.
- Bob and Charlie both become more muscular over the course of the series.
- Bob's outfit hides the fact that while he still has a gut, he's actually quite strong.
- You wouldn't immediately be able to tell that Charlie runs cross country. The baggy clothes and awkward posture hide his runner's physique.
- Double Subverted:
- But Bob regains weight.
- But Charlie later loses weight.
- Parodied:
- The muscular Dave instantly gains weight or loses muscle when he develops a geeky hobby. (It's a 50/50 split between the two possibilities.)
- Nerdy conventions have scales at the entrance to weed out people who aren't skinny or fat enough.
- "Oh, so you're a nerd? Lift these dumbbells."
- Zigzagged: Bob changes from fat to skinny to muscular to strong-fat over the course of the series.
- Averted: Bob and Charlie are neither thin nor overweight.
- Enforced: The author decides to make Bob and Charlie the protagonists because they predict out-of-shape nerdy men will be its main demographic.
- Lampshaded: "It's MangaCon. Do you seriously think anyone here is ripped?"
- Invoked:
- Dave has to play a nerd in his next film role, so he deliberately lets his fitness regiment slip to better look the part.
- Dave and Alice, both conventionally attractive people, know that their respective crushes Charlie and Ellen have a thing for plush nerds. They start gaining weight to win them over.
- Exploited: Charlie learns there is a surprisingly thriving market for adult content involving skinny, nerdy twinks and wants a piece of that pie.
- Defied:
- Sick of the stereotype of nerds being weaklings, Bob and Charlie hit the weights.
- Sick of the stereotype that muscular men can't be nerds, Dave becomes more open about his geeky interests.
- Alice doubles down on her nerdy hobbies to defy the stereotype that conventionally attractive women can't be "real" nerds.
- Charlie knows that while Alice believes Nerds Are Sexy, she also likes fit men. He wants to give her the best of both worlds, so he starts working out to change his build from scrawny to wiry.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Bob and Charlie develop body image problems by constantly comparing themselves to Dave.
- Charlie's increasing hyperfixation on his interests leads to him forgetting to eat to the point of starvation.
- Bob's unhealthy diet leaves him both obese and malnourished. It's only a matter of time before he's hit with a serious health condition.
- Reconstructed:
- Instead of feeling forced to become muscular, Charlie and Bob work with what they have. They improve their grooming and fashion sense, becoming a stylish, slender Pretty Boy and a Big Beautiful Man respectively in the process.
- Bob and Charlie adopt healthier diets. Their physiques don't change too much in the short term, but they're already feeling better than they were before.
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