Female athletes are increasingly popular and women's sports have become big business.

So why does the science studying these athletes lag so far behind?

And more importantly, what are the implications of this gender data gap in sports

research and how does that affect not only the health and well-being as well as like

the performance of women who are athletic.

It's Thursday the 9th of May. It's also Science Friday.

I'm John Dankowski.

Despite the boom in women's sports, most participants in sports science research

are still men.

Luckily though, things are starting to change.

There's a bit more research about women these days, as well as those who fall outside the gender binary.

During the Women's World Cup last year, Kathleen Davis talked to Christine New

Health and Sports Journalist and the author of Up to Speed,

the groundbreaking science of women athletes.

Here's Kathleen.

Christine, welcome to Science Friday.

Hi Kathleen, thank you so much for having me on the show.

So let's start by talking a little bit about the inspiration for this book.

Can you tell me what made you decide to write about this topic?

Yeah, I think it was really the confluence of two different things. One was back in, I want to say, 2013 or 2014. I was at this women's like fitness magazine event and there was a panel and a doctor talking about the female athlete triad.

So generally when women lose their periods because theoretically they exercise too much.

So it's something that I had heard about

...