Gender equality universally linked to physical capacity

(Press-News.org) Fitness amongst young adults varies widely from one country to another, and is strongly associated with both socioeconomic development and gender equality, a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science reports. The results indicate that levels of development and gender equality in a society can affect differences in physical capacity and therefore public health in general.

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is an important factor of health and life-expectancy. For this present study, researchers systematically reviewed data from 95 studies in 24 countries involving a total of over 119,000 adult participants.

CRF is measured by what is known as the VO2peak, which is the highest oxygen uptake a body achieves during physical exertion.

The group, which included researchers from KI and Shanghai University of Sport, studied correlations between CRF, the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII).

HDI is a measure of societal parameters like education, income and life-expectancy, while GII reflects differences between women and men in terms of health, education and labour.

Clear correlation in women

The results show that people in countries with a higher HDI were, on average, fitter, a correlation that was particularly salient amongst women, where young women in countries with a medium HDI had a higher VO2peak than women in countries with a low HDI (31.2 versus 28.5 mL/kg/min). However, a further HDI increase from medium to high gave only small improvements.

“Our results suggest that societal structures impact greatly on people’s access to exercise and thus their fitness levels,” says the study’s lead author Nicolas Pillon, researcher at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, KI.

The study also shows that higher gender equality (a lower GII) correlates with a higher level of fitness in both women and men. Again, the difference was the most notable amongst young women, who in countries with high gender equality had on average a 6.5 mL/kg/min higher VO2peak than their peers in countries with low gender equality.

“Our results underpin the importance of societal interventions and guidelines that reduce social and gender-related hindrances to physical exercise but point out that more research is needed from countries with a lower HDI, and on the obstacles facing different ethnic and socioeconomic communities,” says Barbara Ainsworth, researcher at Shanghai University of Sport and head of the study.

The study was financed with grants from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and Diabetes Wellness Network Sverige. There are no reported conflicts of interest.

Publication: “Human Development and Gender Inequality Are Associated with Cardiorespiratory Fitness: A Global Systematic Review of V̇O2peak”, Nicolas J. Pillon, Joaquin Ortiz de Zevallos, Juleen R. Zierath, Barbara E. Ainsworth. Journal of Sport and Health Science, online October 22, 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.jshs.2025.101098 

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