New research suggests that long-standing assumptions about sex and gender continue to shape how studies are designed, interpreted, and reported.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia say a basic question is still being answered unevenly in exercise physiology: whose bodies are used to define “normal” human responses to training, fatigue, and recovery. In a sweeping look at the recent literature, their team reports that sex and gender are still handled in ways that leave major gaps in what the field can confidently claim about everyone.
The review was led by Dr. Meaghan MacNutt, an assistant professor of teaching in UBC Okanagan’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences, and published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. With colleagues from UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, she examined more than 600 recent papers drawn from six top exercise physiology journals.
What they found was a strong imbalance in who gets studied. Nearly half of the papers included only male participants, while fewer than one in ten focused exclusively on females. The authors also reported a similar imbalance in who is producing the work: women accounted for 27 percent of all authors and 16 percent of senior authors.
Gender Gaps Extend Beyond Study Participants
“There are far fewer women in exercise physiology than in other biomedical or health sciences,” says Dr. MacNutt. “Our numbers are closer to what we see in disciplines with very well-known gender gaps, like physics or computer science.”
The team argues that the consequences reach far beyond representation. When a research base is built mostly on male participants, it becomes easier for entire fields to treat male physiology as the default and to frame female biology as a special case that needs justification.
“When findings based primarily on males are generalized to females, important sex-based differences in physiology, diagnosis, and treatment can be overlooked. In exercise science, this contributes to an incomplete understanding of how women respond to physical activity—affecting everything from disease prevention to injury rehabilitation and athletic performance.”
The researchers also evaluated whether studies followed the Sex and Gender Equity in Research Guidelines, an international framework meant to improve both fairness and scientific precision. Most of the exercise physiology papers met fewer than one third of the guidelines, and more than half used terminology about sex and gender in ways the team described as inaccurate or unclear, a problem that can make results harder to interpret, compare, or apply across different groups.
The Role of Researchers and Structural Barriers
Dr. MacNutt points out that many articles contained clues about how these inequities are produced and sustained, including biased language, unexamined assumptions, and weak or absent justifications for excluding female participants. These patterns suggest that exercise researchers still see men as the standard representation for human physiology. The study also found that this bias is just as common in women authors as men.
“Women researchers aren’t perfect,” states Dr. MacNutt. “We all have work to do. But evidence indicates that women researchers are helping to move the discipline forward in important ways—by including more female participants in their studies, collaborating more often with other women, and communicating more clearly about sex and gender.”
Unfortunately, the paper found no evidence that an increase in the number of women in exercise physiology is on the horizon.
Dr. MacNutt stresses the goal of this study is to raise awareness and encourage people to think about ways to improve the situation. She notes that some exercise physiologists—including researchers at UBC—are already working hard to address sex and gender gaps in the literature. However, there is still a long way to go.
“We hope this paper is a wake-up call—not just for exercise physiology researchers, but also for those in leadership positions at academic institutions, funding agencies, and scientific journals. Shifts in individual researcher behaviour are essential, but they aren’t likely to happen without support and action at all levels.”
Reference: “Exercise physiology trails the field in sex and gender equity: a call for faster progress, higher standards, and stronger science” by Hira Niazi, Jenna Benbaruj, Andrew William Sheel and Meaghan MacNutt, 22 January 2026, Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism.
DOI: 10.1139/apnm-2025-0312
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6 Comments
“… more than half used terminology about sex and gender in ways the team described as inaccurate or unclear, …”
Speaking of which, this article uses the terms “sex and gender” several times, and never once defines or differentiates between the two.
“Our numbers are closer to what we see in disciplines with very well-known gender gaps, like physics or computer science.”
There are almost certainly reasons for the so-called “gender gaps.” Yet, there aren’t even suggestions about why the “gender gaps” exist. This article comes across as a complaint; yet, given the opportunity while at the podium, the authors don’t even articulate the complaint, let alone offer suggestions to correct what they apparently perceive to be a problem in need of correction.
It seems to me the language they are using indicates that they are haring off chasing ideological carrots rather than stressing scientific accuracy and facts. The latter trumps the former when the foot hits the road. Yes, men and women are seriously different physiologically. Perhaps the computer models for how the male human body works should grow options that consider how the female body works. Then software knobs should exist to allow tuning the model to each given person’s complete medical history and genetics. Where in that does “equity” fit? Where in that does “gender gap” fit? Remove the ideology if you want a useful product, folks.
{^_^}
Any time I see the word “equity” being applied to fields of scientific study I immediately know that there is little to no science involved.
Because Men Are The BIG, STRONG, USEFUL HUMANS!
Why Can’t Women Accept Reality?
Because They Grew Up On Fairy Tales and Still Enjoy Little Kid Crap, That Lies To Them and Makes Them Feel Good? LOL!
How odd it is that a great many articles about fitness harbour photographs of beautiful young women wearing close -fitting skimpy clothes rather than hairy old men wearing baggy pants and daggy shirts. I wonder what the male/female ratio is when it comes to highly paid models.