It is such a common element of culture but when I look closely it doesn't make too much sense.
What are the general characteristics of a nerd?
- Smart and interested in academics.
- Physically underdeveloped and bad at sports.
- Socially awkward and unattractive.
Does this cluster make sense to you?
Sure, health problems can make you both unattractive (and subsequently awkward) and small/weak/uncoordinated. But what do smarts have to do with this? I'm guessing statistically a healthy kid is likely to do better at school than an unhealthy one.
So how do nerds come to be?
Is that because kids who don't do well socially are more motivated to excel academically?
Do smart cool athletic kids refrain from getting into nerd stuff because it's frowned upon in the cool circles?
Is being a nerd a sort of a "mild" autistic spectrum thing?
Also, a follow up question. Are nerds actually smarter on average by any measurement? Why or why not?
You're looking at it the wrong way. The actual definition is "Children and young people who were stigmatized, sometimes violently, for their interests or characteristics during the 80s and 90s."
The characteristics of nerds are a set of characteristics for which people were stigmatized and ostracized at a particular period in time. The stigma has gone but the group remains.