The only thing anyone in TV cares about is ratings, which means getting more casual viewers (ie, not us) to watch the show. And that means casting good looking bimbos and himbos to walk around in bathing suits and "characters" they hope will breakout.
What's even sadder than that is the fact that these "eye candies" are getting invisible or near non-existent edits. What's the point of casting eye candy if you aren't even going to show them?!

But yeah, models who happened to have played some sports when they were younger is MUCH different than women who are active, play sports regularly, go camping, have been in the military or had training, etc. They make these models out to be super athletes because they were on the basketball team in middle school.