6 Things Dr Stacy Sims Wants Women and Girls to Know About Bodies and Sport
June 15 | 4 minute read
Words by The MECCA Memo
The trailblazing Aotearoa New Zealand-based exercise physiologist, Stanford researcher and former professional athlete has become one of the defining voices reshaping how we think about women’s health, performance and sport. Her mantra? Women are not small men – and she has spent her career proving it.
Last month, MECCA was lucky enough to host Dr Sims in Australia to launch Bodies, Bias and Belonging – a free, evidence-based education program developed with Cool.org and backed by a $250,000 investment from MECCA M-POWER, now available to students in Years 5 – 10 across Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand ). But listening to her speak, it became clear the ideas behind the program matter for all of us.
So, we’ve pulled together six things Dr Sims taught us about girls, bodies and sport – the kind of information many of us wish we had growing up.
The Science Was Never Really Written for Girls
Early on in her career, Dr Sims realised that much of the research she was being taught had quietly left women out: “All the lab work was based on male data,” she explains. “My results were compared to men’s results and thrown out.” When she pushed back, she was told women were “anomalies” or simply “too complicated” to study because of hormonal fluctuations.
Women have always been underrepresented in medical research – and in Australia, it only became mandatory to include sex and gender in health research applications this year. The gap is real – but so is the momentum to close it.
If You Fell Out of Love With Sport Around Puberty, It Wasn’t Your Fault
Puberty is the point where many girls quietly step away from sport – and Dr Sims is clear that it's rarely about the girls themselves. “It’s not just that girls get their period – it’s how they’re treated: the lack of information, uncertainty about what’s normal, and sporting environments that don’t support them,” she says.
Dr Sims points to the small, fixable things that add up: white shorts, no period products in first aid kits, language like ‘girl push-ups'. The takeaway? The system was the problem, not you. “If we start empowering girls and fixing the structure at the beginning, we don’t have to retrofit later,” she adds.
Lifting Heavy Won’t Make You ‘Bulky’ – Strength Belongs to You
Walk into a gym, Dr Sims says, and women are still too often pointed toward fitness classes while men are shown the weights. “That pushes women toward quantity rather than quality” when it comes to exercise – a hangover from the 1990s that doesn’t reflect how women’s bodies actually respond.
Strength training builds muscle, bone density, brain health and confidence. Girls shouldn’t be steered away from the weights room; it’s one of the best places they can be!
During the teen years, everything develops at once – the endocrine system, bone density, the brain and its neural connections. Physical activity changes the structure of the brain itself: “We see less depression, less anxiety, less fear and more confidence,” says Dr Sims.
There’s a longer game, too: girls who play team sport through senior school are more likely to become leaders, learning early how to “have a voice at the table rather than being in the room without one.”
The Basics Do the Heavy Lifting
Cold plunges, infrared saunas, sleep supplements? Dr Sims has a verdict: “[It’s] like trying to put buttercream on a hot cake – it melts off unless the foundation is there.”
The pillars she keeps coming back to are movement, consistency, sleep, protein, fibre and social connection. She’s also a believer in the 80/20 rule, explaining, “Don’t beat yourself up for the 20 percent of the time you want a sweet treat or to stay out late – that’s life.”
Get the basics right first, then decide what’s actually worth your attention.
Dr Stacy Sims with students from Canterbury Girls’ Secondary College.
Put Yourself First – You Can’t Pour From an Empty Cup
When asked for the things every woman can do for her health starting today, Dr Sims leads with permission to prioritise yourself, explaining, “If you’re not taking care of yourself mentally and physically, you can’t show up for anyone else."
Check in with yourself, mentally and physically, before a workout. “Often, your mental capacity comes up, and then you can decide what kind of session it will be,” she says. On the tough days, just do the warm-up – consistency matters, but so does knowing when to modify!
Why It Matters
This is exactly the thinking Bodies, Bias and Belonging is built to pass on to the next generation, with the three-year partnership expected to reach 260,000 young people in its first year.
The day after speaking at MECCA’s Lunch & Learn session, Dr Sims visited Canterbury Girls’ Secondary College in Melbourne – putting students through their physical paces before hitting the classroom to talk nutrition, exercise and the importance of listening to their bodies. Teachers praised Dr Sims’ program as an invaluable, highly adaptable tool.
And across both events, the same feeling kept surfacing: that this kind of information simply did not exist for so many of us growing up. So, here’s to the possibility of what might change for the next generation now that it does!
Jump on Cool.org to learn more about Bodies, Bias and Belonging, and share the resources with the teachers, coaches and parents in your life.
