Support research on childhood sex differences in strength

Background and rationale for this research

Sex and gender are currently hot topics. Much of what we know about males and females is being questioned and debated. Science can help bring clarity to these debates.

One topic that is receiving considerable attention in the public square is transgender individuals and the extent to which they do or do not have performance advantages in sports. This topic then raises more fundamental questions about the time course of muscle strength development in boys and girls and whether biological or social factors are the primary causes of any sex differences in muscle fitness during childhood.

My research project, titled, “Muscle strength in boys and girls: a meta-analysis,” will bring clarity to such discussions. The project will be a meta-analysis that compares muscle strength levels in hundreds of thousands of boys and girls from birth to age 16. A meta-analysis is a study that combines all available data on a topic into one large analysis. A benefit of a meta-analysis is that it provides a clear and scientifically robust answer for a research question because the number of children considered in the analysis is substantially larger than in a single study, which might include only 20 boys and girls.

Remarkably, though a substantial amount of data on muscle strength in boys and girls is available in published papers, only one attempt has been made to use meta-analysis to describe sex differences in muscle strength prior to puberty. This attempt was made by Thomas and French in 1985, and it was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin. However, their analysis was limited because it did not include muscle strength data from children younger than 5 years of age. But most notably, it included results from only four studies – two of which were not even published in peer-reviewed journals. Forty years have passed since their report, and there now about 100-200 published research papers that could provide data for an updated meta-analysis. Consequently, with your support, I plan to complete this updated analysis. I believe educators, parents, sports officials, policymakers, health practitioners, and other researchers will all benefit from knowledge of the results.

Purpose of this research

The project will aim to answer the following questions:

1) Does a sex difference in muscle strength exist between boys and girls? If so, at what age does this difference become significantly different?

2) Has there been any change in this difference over time? For example, is the difference in muscle strength between boys and girls the same today as in the 1960s or has it increased or decreased?

3) Are differences in muscle strength between boys and girls the same in all countries and cultures?

Will the results be made available?

Yes. I will complete the project as quickly as possible. Prior to submitting the results to a peer-reviewed academic journal, I will aim to make the paper available as a pre-print. A pre-print is a version of a paper that is currently undergoing peer review. It is a draft or preliminary version of the final published paper.

I also plan to publish the final version of the paper as open access. Open access means that anyone in the world will be able to download the published paper for free. Finally, I will also highlight the results from the research on my social media accounts and other platforms.

How can we be sure the project will be completed?

I have a track record of completing research projects and doing so quickly. I have published over 70 research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals, including meta-analyses related to sex differences in muscle fitness. My CV is available here .

Why use this funding model?

• Overview. Funding for research usually comes government agencies (i.e., your taxes) or from organizations that have a special interest in an issue (e.g., cancer societies). Acquiring research grants from these two sources is both difficult and unnecessarily time consuming.

• Grants are highly competitive. Research grants are difficult to acquire because there is a great deal of competition for a relatively small pot of money. Only a small percent of grant applications that researchers submit to agencies are awarded. In fact, many researchers become so disgruntled with their prospects of receiving research grants that they eventually give up research altogether. The Donation Funding Model helps to overcome this challenge of competitive grant seeking.

• Grant agendas. Funding bodies are often unwilling to give money for certain types of research, such as meta-analyses of existing datasets, though results from this type of research are often greatly appreciated by educators, health practitioners, and the public. Funding from these bodies also often favours researchers who have a history of acquiring grants, have ongoing international collaborations, or who have their own laboratory and equipment. The Donation Funding Model helps to overcome such challenges by allowing the public to decide what research they believe is important and who they believe can be trusted to complete such research in a rigorous, transparent, and timely manner.

• Saving time. Grant applications and the instruction booklets that accompany them are usually dozens of pages long. Consequently, researchers spent a lot of time reading and fill out grant applications, only to then not be awarded a grant. As many researchers are employed as professors at public universities, this means taxpayer dollars are wasted due to the administrative tasks associated with completing grant applications. The Donation Funding Model eliminates this administrative burden and allows the researcher to focus exclusively on the research.

• Speeding up research. Getting research grants can be a slow process. From the time a researcher begins writing a grant application, to the time their application is evaluated, to the time the funds are delivered to the university, is often a matter of several months. The proposed meta-analysis is ready to go right now. The Donation Funding Model will allow this research to be completed without delay.

• Removing the middleman and unnecessary bureaucracy. Universities and their administrative staff serve as middlemen or bureaucracy between the money giver and the researcher. Again, this slows the research process and creates further delays in completing the research project and sharing the results with others. The Donation Funding Model allows for direct-to-researcher funding.

• My current position. Unlike most researchers who receive large research grants, I am not a full-time, salaried, university employee. I am mostly an independent researcher. Consequently, any work that I complete on projects like this is unpaid. Over the past couple of years, I have conducted and published several research papers, including on sex differences, without compensation from a university or publisher (researchers do not receive royalty payments from publishers). I do this because I am passionate about health and fitness research, and I believe we need objective results to help guide discussions and decision making. The Donation Funding Model helps to support independent researchers.

What will the funds be used for?

The funds will be used to support my personal expenses during the several weeks of work that will be required to complete the following tasks: (1) search electronic databases for relevant articles; (2) read about 100-200 articles to determine whether a study is eligible to be included in the analysis; (3) extract and organise data from eligible studies into a spreadsheet; (4) conduct a meta-analysis of the data; (5) write the results into a paper that will be submitted to a scientific journal for peer review; and (6) respond to feedback from peer reviewers and edit the paper accordingly.

Hmm, I’m still not sure…

If you want to have clear and objective answers regarding whether sex differences in muscle strength exist in children, at what age these differences arise, whether they are due to biology or environment, and whether they are the same across cultures and countries, then please consider supporting this project. A meta-analysis of hundreds of studies is the best way to answer these questions. The alternative is not pretty. It is speculation, subjective opinion, and political activism disguised as scholarship. Go fund me!

Biography

Dr. James L. Nuzzo is an exercise science researcher based in Perth, Australia. He has published over 70 research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. His research on muscle strength and sex differences in exercise is regularly cited by his academic peers.