The portrayal of Egyptian bodyweight is fairly accurate although I do not have any concrete data on demographics in the NPC (computer generated) population.

Although most Egyptians ate a diet high in grain, vegetables and dairy, and low in red meat and sugar, numerous nutrition related diseases afflicted the population. Examination of Egyptian mummies from throughout the Predynastic and Dynastic periods has illuminated a lot of what ailed them.

For the most part the average Egyptian subsisted on bread, fruits/vegetables, beer and dairy (butter, cheese and milk). This beer was nothing like the thin, refreshing, usually carbonated beverage modern consumers in Europe/Americas reach for. It was thick, soupy, chunky and not very alcoholic. With a diet like this it is easy to see why obesity was not as much as a problem for the Egyptians as it is for many modern nations. There was no processed sugar only honey and fruit derived sugars, and saturated fats were hard to come by.

Although the average Egyptian's diet was lacking in protein they were relatively healthy compared to other populations. That is to say that they did not suffer as much from stunted growth and nutritional deficiencies as those in, say, Nubia. Now a common labourer was not really as likely to become obese under these conditions either, because of a combination of manual labour and poor diet. But there is a world of nuance between being clinically obese, and being a well toned supermodel.

Any muscle mass that someone might put on with a diet like this and repetitive stress from agricultural labour is not going to be well toned or evenly distributed into muscle groups that modern gymgoers might focus on. This would lead to a small amount of flabby muscle that would be more physically practical than attractive under Egyptian beauty standards.

The wealthy elite of Egypt are another matter. They had access to more meats, honey and fruit than the average Egyptian, and this was not as good as you might imagine. Many elite Egyptians were somewhat overweight, and some suffered from diseases associated with unhealthy weight.

For instance, arterial disease is found often enough although it does not have to correlate with being overweight. Diabetes is rarely attested to in Egyptian medical papyri compared to common ailments like infection, skin issues or dental pain, but it is there. Most notably, the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut was found to have been obese.

The statue of Hemiunu, architect of the Great Pyramid, is striking because of its apparently realistic portrayal of a flabby middle aged man. Egyptian art can be quite misleading as the most famous and ubiquitous artworks portray idealised, slender, youthful elites. These figures are beautiful, healthy and powerful because they are intended to portray the ideals and values of the aristocracy. Foreigners and the lower classes are not always portrayed in idealised forms. These groups were viewed with a degree of contempt and may be portrayed as balding, unkempt, weak or with flabbier bodies. The brief Amarna period offers a counterexample as softer, more corpulent elite figures are often portrayed in art.

Physicality was also strongly tied up with gender. Males were slender and strong, while women might be softer and more curvaceous. Softness around the hips and breasts was particularly associated with femininity, and corpulent gods like Hapi were portrayed with pendulous breasts and wide hips to show that they were feminine, not heavy. Youth was also associated with virility while age was associated with being overweight, so the Egyptian idea of a strong masculine leader was also young and fit.

On the whole, we have to look outside of more formalised and conservative art to get a better picture of ancient Egypt. Artist’s sketches and graffiti portrays figures who are less idealised and may be balding, aged, unkempt or have potbellies. The Turin Erotic Papyrus has attracted a lot of attention and various authors have suggested it was satirical, pornographic or critical. Whatever its genre, it was certainly unflattering. The papyrus portrayed short, flabby, balding unkempt men with oversized phalluses having intercourse with taller, idealised women.

What drawings like these tell us is that elites are not portrayed in idealised forms because Egyptian artists were unfamiliar with anything other than slender human bodies. Elites are portrayed in this way because Egyptian artists were trying to convey the physical and spiritual virtue of their subjects, sometimes by contrasting them with the downtrodden poor and foreigners. The images we see on the sides of temples and tombs are carefully crafted and not the individualised selfies that might be hoped for.

The Hellenistic elite of Ptolemaic Egypt were certainly susceptible to obesity and the Ptolemaic Dynasty is somewhat infamous for this. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Ptolemy VIII whose epithet “Physkos” literally translates to Blood Sausage or Pot Belly. When Scipio Aemilianus made a diplomatic visit to Alexandria in 140 BCE, Ptolemy VIII offered to give them a tour of the city. During this time, Scipio supposedly turned to his companions and informed them under his breath that the Alexandrians had already benefited from the visit, quipping that:

We have given the Alexandrians a rare sight; their king taking a walk

Even more well loved monarchs like Ptolemy II and Arsinöe II were overweight. Hellenistic art was also more realistic in certain ways, although it was still bound by symbolism and artistic conventions. Hellenistic artists became fascinated with producing “grotesque” forms and portraits of extreme age, dwarfism, obesity, or foreigners (namely Celts and Aethiopians) express this. This was not so much a celebration of humans in all their forms so much as it was an interest in figures which were a departure from idealised normalcy as the Greeks saw it.

The ideals which the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans tried to paint their world as have coloured our perceptions of the past. In many ways a modern audience is as misled by ancient art as future humans would be if they tried to assess the present day based on fashion magazines. Obesity, heart disease and diabetes were not epidemics in Ptolemaic Egypt the way that they are in many modern countries, but they existed and even where individuals were not obese, they were also not the supermen that modern media makes them out to be.

I also wanted to address this

scribes are shown teaching a group of boys and girls, though in truth, it would have only been boys.

Although scribes were exclusively male, private tutors taught both the sons and daughters of the upper classes how to read and write. School houses are not attested to until the Roman period but they are thought to have existed in Ptolemaic Egypt as well. Of course, most people in ancient Egypt were illiterate and men were more likely to be literate than women.

Alexandria is actually known for its female poets, philosophers and scientists but virtually every example of women intellectuals had fathers who were known in that field. This points to the passing down of knowledge from parent to child and learning in the home, rather than more institutionalised forms of learning (e.g. Private tutors specializing in teaching girls philosophy or medicine).

So while the idea of scribes training boys and girls is inaccurate, the idea of boys and girls learning letters is not.