Stereotypical, Racisit or Realistic?

Asians are all smart, Americans are obese, the French are hopeless romantics and African Americans are naturally athletic. So often we hear these racial stereotypes in our society, almost to the point where we are dumb to them. Is that ok? Or are we just ignoring a growing issue? Are we being stereotypical or just flat out racist?
This is the question I've been stuck on for a while now, and then the other day I had a slightly enlightening conversation with my father and my older sister who now attends the very liberal and culturally diverse University of Berkley, CA. My dad, a very blunt and honest man, made a stereotypical/ border line racist comment about Mexicans, to which both my sister and I responding to with shock and disdain. We told him, that no matter what you think, making a comment like that is inappropriate! But then my father asked, "Why is that wrong? It's true, there are statistics that proves it." So  I decided to do a little research. I found that yes, Asians do have the highest average IQs, America is the second most obese country in the world (recently beat out by Mexico), and African Americans are the most naturally athletic race according to several studies. After finding all these stereotypes to be true, I didn't have much ground for scolding my father. He was simply coming to a conclusion based on the facts he knew about the Mexican race, so could we classify this as "making an logical conclusion", racism or stereotyping?
According to Webster's dictionary, which I know seems very elementary to quote but often can be surprisingly enlightening, racism is defined as poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race; the belief that some races of people are better than others. And then stereotyping is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same.
So lets think about it again, is it really racist to say that all Asians are smart? Is it poor treatment? No, violent? Obviously not. Does it imply that one race is better than another? Slightly, but it isn't implying that being smart is limited to the Asian race, its just pointing out a common characteristic between Asians. It would be safer to classify this comment as stereotypical. But now I must raise the question, is stereotyping necessarily wrong? It depends, like any other comment, digression must be used. Obviously if you think your comment is going to offend someone, then you shouldn't say it. But what about my father? His comment probably could have offended a few people but it was the truth. In this case, I would recommend changing the way you say your opinion. For example, instead of saying all white people are obese, opt to say that America has the 2nd highest obesity in the world. Your making your point by stating the facts without making assumptions. 
To wrap it up, I would like to remind everyone that we live in a world, and specifically a country where people tend to be very sensitive in comments concerning race, so always be conscious in your statements but never scared. We also live in a country where our first amendment is the freedom of speech, so if you really believer your comment is for the overall enriching of a conversation, SAY IT!