Accelerated BS-MS student Olivia Perez (Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences) has published her first article in Sports (Impact Factor 2.9), titled, "Binary Sex Input Has No Effect on Metabolic or Pulmonary Variables: A Within-Subjects Observational Study."
Mentored by Drs. Michael Wong, Dustin Davis, and James Navalta (Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences), Perez’s team tested whether sex entered into a metabolic analysis system affects its measurements. The system they used, ParvoMedics TrueOne 2400, requires sex input in a binary format, offering only two options: “female” and “male.”
Twenty healthy, recreationally active adults completed two conditions in a random order, walking and running on a treadmill with 1) their actual sex entered into the system (female-female; male-male), and 2) the other sex entered (female-male; male-female). In both conditions, the researchers measured participants’ breathing, oxygen use, and calories burned.
Participants’ data did not significantly differ between the two conditions, showing the system is unaffected by the entered sex. These findings are consistent with the team’s earlier study using another leading system (COSMED K5).
Together, the studies demonstrate that two leading systems in exercise science do not depend on binary sex input and could be updated to offer more inclusive options beyond “female” and “male."
