Exercise Science Doesn’t Know Women

Men and women obviously differ, but to the extent which they do is a new discovery, and one that needs a lot more study. Gretchen Reynolds takes a fascinating look at the world of sports science and their lack of knowledge re women sports science in "Phys Ed: What Exercise Science Doesn’t Know About Women" at NYTimes Blog Well. For those women that follow health and sport trends, it's good to know that some of these, if not most, have only been tested on men and affect women differently.

Reynolds writes:

Scientists know, of course, that women are not men. But they often rely on male subjects exclusively, particularly in the exercise-science realm, where, numerically, fewer female athletes exist to be studied.

In a male dominated sport science world, a few women asked for a duplicate study on women, which spurred the attention to the differences in sexes in sport sciences. It would benefit women to encourage more research on female subjects to explore in-depth the differences and nuances of female sports science.

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