I don´t think the article is proposing "the more, the better". Rather, it is emphasizing that muscle mass is much more that pure force production or aesthetics in that it plays a key role in maintaining a healthy metabolism.
Replying to your question: if you compare two identical women differing only in their percentage of muscle mass, yes, one is healthier than the other.
As for the body builders; this is a tricky question, but I don´t think they are healthier than the general population...muscle mass being completely irrelevant.
Some bodybuilders over-train, which can stress critical organ systems such as kidneys.
EDIT: Rest/Recovery is necessary. Specifically, it's important not to increase the amount of metabolic requirements you stress yourself with too rapidly before the body has time to adapt. The body can adapt to stress and become stronger (hormesis) but it takes time, rest, and nutrition.
if you compare two identical women differing only in their percentage of muscle mass, yes, one is healthier than the other.
Depends what you mean by "healthy." Plenty of overweight people live long lives.
I don't think anyone would disagree that muscles are desirable and that exercise helps, or that being overweight is a bad thing. But there's quite a lot of disagreement about the severity of the problem. If you look around, there are many old and overweight people. They got to that point without having the kind of muscle mass you're talking about.
A more persuasive approach is probably to focus on the benefits, rather than the implied downside of not having "health." For example, I had no idea that exercise would have such a profound effect on my brain. My mind is sharper when I exercise compared to when I don't. At least, it was true for me. Could be placebo effect, but, then again, the placebo effect is measurable, so sometimes it helps.
As an aside, long-term (which is where we really care about "healthy" anyway), you would probably expect body builders to be healthier than some classes of athletes, with various circumstances obviously influencing that.
Professional sports are notoriously rough on the body (and mind) long-term. It's not a secret that athletes in certain sports (e.g. american football, boxing) often have debilitating health issues in their later years stemming from their career. I'd say Arnold is doing a hell of a lot better health-wise than Muhammad Ali, for example.
I'm sure to an extent it helps you, then after a point like most things it will hinder you. I wouldn't expect some of the past and present Mr.Olympias to be very healthy.
The last half of his statement is especially invalid in roughly half of the world. Bill Gates isn't very strong, and he's more useful than any 'strongman' I've ever heard of.
See: Einstein, Newton, Aristotle, Tesla, Edison, Stephen Hawking et al. Brain has proven to be vastly more important and useful, than brawn, for thousands of years.
Bill Gates being particularly strong would not add anything to his overall value proposition, in fact I'd argue it's entirely irrelevant.
Bill gates is strong, he's not Arnold but he is strong enough to maintain his health which allows him to focus on solving actual problems. Everyone you listed except for hawking was relatively healthy(strong) and his specific situation is basically a miracle of modern medicine.
A stronger Bill Gates would be more resistant to disease, death, injury etc., and thus be more useful (which is what this study is saying). If he hurts his back because he wasn't trained and is thus unable to travel and work as much, or recovers from disease more slowly because he is weak then it's really not irrelevant. Bill Gates spends an hour ever morning on the treadmill. If he swapped that for strength training or even half of it for strength training it is likely he would get a significant mortality risk reduction, and thus keep his brain in a position to be more useful for longer. Mind body link, no point in choosing one side or the other. It's all one thing.
Presumably even Bill Gates needs to lift the odd pile of books or open a jam jar.
And I wouldn't swap with Stephen Hawking, so presumably I value my strength levels and lower intelligence more highly than his much, much greater intelligence and virtually non-existent strength.
