Sport: sex differences pre-puberty

[NotBadConsidering]

There's been a weekend of running events here, marathon, half, 10km etc. There were also two kids' races: a 2km event for 5-10 year olds, and a 4km event for 5-14 year olds. The sex distribution of those entering was pretty even for both (which is both positive from a participation perspective and important to demonstrate my next point).

In the 2km event, the highest place girl, a 10 year old, was 4th. There were 30 girls in the top 100.

In the 4km event, the highest placed girl, an 11-12 year old, came 1st! Good on her. But there were only 23 girls in the top 100.

Clearly there is an overall sex difference in sports performance (and that's ok) apart from exceptional single athletes, and it comes before puberty. How can that be ignored? Puberty merely strengthens the gap. Hormone treatment treatment doesn't change your VO2Max. Nor many other parameters. I just thought it was a prime example of how testosterone is not the only thing that matters.

Doesn't the fact that there are different height /weight charts for boys and girls from birth suggest there is a difference in-utero?

Well there is this www.researchgate.net/publication/224914505_Physical_Fitness_Differences_Between_Prepubescent_Boys_and_Girls

Yes, we all know it, yes there is research showing and yes, there are stark everyday demonstrations of it (my op, plus all the world records in every event). So the question is, why do sports' governing bodies wobble on their positions with it?

I think pre puberty it would be very hard to separate out innate differences from so

From socialisation (see Lise Eliot's work for an excellent discussion of this in connection with supposed cognitive differences).

From the numbers you quote, OP, it's not obvious to me that there's a sex difference - I say that as a working scientist who spends a lot of time worrying about statistical significance. I would need to run all the results (not just the top hundred finishers, because statistics at the extremes of the distribution are always hard to handle) through some sort of analysis, eg bootstrap resampling, to see whether the apparent difference is a statistically significant one.

I agree that looking at the results you quote gives good grounds to think there's something there that warrants further investigation, but those results on their own don't establish the answer.

Also, don't underestimate the importance of sex segregation in counteracting socialisation. Promising female athlete places third in an all girl's field, and comes away thinking "I could do better next time." Places 15th in a mixed field and comes away thinking "I'm not very good, I'll put my energies into ABC interest instead." (What I'm trying to get at is that if there is a gap, what may matter is less where the gap comes from - innate physiology v socialisation - and more how we can best encourage girls given that gap.)

Also it's indisputable that the gap is there post puberty, is largely driven by physiological factors, and those factors go beyond simply testosterone.

The thing is, we know that even from birth boys are encouraged to be more physically active than girls, so by age 6 they’ve had that many years of more muscle development just from being more active

I'm not sure I agree with this, but even if it was true, the population of my study would probably remove that as a confounding factor. If you're the sort of family that enters your 5-14 year old in a running race, you're probably the sort of family who is always active, and see the value in sports and athletics for children and it will have been so since birth. I hypothesise anyway

Fermats it's hard to demonstrate because I just looked at the results, but it's not like those 30 girls were all in the top 40 for example. It's crude I admit, but I had a look at the age groups and the sexes and there was still a difference.

Re: socialisation, see my point above.

I'm not sure I agree with this, but even if it was true, the population of my study would probably remove that as a confounding factor

There's a lot of evidence for this, and being from an active family does not remove this as a factor. This goes way beyond what happens at home - it's to do with what's expected and offered at school, what their friends are doing, the kind of role models that are held up to them etc., etc. Even in active families, it is likely that boys are encouraged to be active more than girls are even when there is an intention not to do this because subconscious influences are almost impossible to control - just like girls are read to more than boys even in families that believe they are treating them equally.

It's a fair point and I would agree it contributes. However I also see several situations where it's unlikely, or not significant. For example my kids also do swimming squad. They have club night every Friday. Boys' records and PBs are generally faster than the girls', even in the pre-pubertal age groups. These are kids who have all been swimming the same since they were babies. It's not like they boys are swimming extra sessions. I think there are biological differences in sport from an early age, puberty enhances the gap, and no amount of suppressive therapy can equalise that. Girls need their sports to be sex-based.

Not hugely scientific but the 'No More Girls and Boys' programme did a class survey on the children in the class about their confidence in their physical abilities. Even at 8 years boys were hugely more confident than girls (even if they were not actually as capable).

Also, don't underestimate the importance of sex segregation in counteracting socialisation. Promising female athlete places third in an all girl's field, and comes away thinking "I could do better next time." Places 15th in a mixed field and comes away thinking "I'm not very good, I'll put my energies into ABC interest instead." (What I'm trying to get at is that if there is a gap, what may matter is less where the gap comes from - innate physiology v socialisation - and more how we can best encourage girls given that gap.)

Fermats yes! I think this part is really important in terms of wider sports participation. We want more people to think of themselves as sporty/physically capable
wish i could have articulated this argument in the infamous parkrun thread!