When previously sedentary males and females follow the same exercise training programs with ad libitum feeding, males reduced body mass, but females do not, which suggests that females may increase appetite in response to exercise training compared with males. Rope skipping is traditional exercise modality that everyone had experienced during elementary school years in Japan. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a sex difference on appetite after acute rope skipping exercise.

Thirteen healthy young males (22.5±0.8 years, 172.2±1.7cm, 68.8±2.3kg, 18.4±0.9%) and 13 females (22.9±0.8 years, 160.6±1.5cm, 52.9±1.6kg, 25.0±1.0%) participated in this study. Subjects consumed their lunch by 13:00, and performed a total of 20min rope skipping exercise (2 sets×10min with 5min interval) from 16:00. In females, appetite significantly increased from immediately after the exercise to 30min after the exercise (from 13mm to 30mm), but remained unchanged in males. Although heart rate, ratings of perceived exertion, and lactate concentrations increased from baseline to immediately after exercise, there were no differences in the increase between males and females. Blood glucose concentrations at baseline and 30min after exercise were higher in females than in males.

These results indicated that rope skipping exercise induces an increase in appetite in females, but not in males. This increased appetite in females after the rope skipping exercise was induced without change in blood glucose concentrations.