Woman's Hour - Keely Hodgkinson's gold, Meera Sodha, IQ levels

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Keely Hodgkinson has won gold in the women's 800 metres at the Paris Olympics. It's only Team GB's 10th ever female gold medal in athletics. Nuala McGovern is joined by five-time Olympic athlete Jo Pavey to reflect on Keely's success and what it means for the career of the 22-year-old.The Paris 2024 Olympics was set to be the first where men could compete alongside women in the synchronised swimming, now known as artistic swimming. Bill May has been campaigning for this change for the last 30 years. He speaks to Nuala about why he thinks men should be included in the sport.Food writer Meera Sodha’s new cookbook, Dinner: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes for the Most Important Meal of the Day, pays homage to the restorative power of cooking for the ones you love. Meera says it was written in the midst of ‘a difficult personal time and much reflection.’ She joins Nuala to talk about mental health and rediscovering her love for food.Do you have any idea what your IQ is? New analysis from The Economist shows that brain development is being hindered across the world due to a lack of nutrition, war and even sexism - issues mainly affecting women and children. Are they getting left behind? Nuala is joined by the Deputy Editor of The Economist, Robert Guest, and Dr Meera Shekar, Global Lead for Nutrition at The World Bank’s Health, Nutrition & Population Global Practice.Emma O’Halloran’s opera, Mary Motorhead, tells the story of a woman who is behind bars for murder. Emma speaks to Nuala about showing a different side to the stereotypical female opera lead. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lottie Garton

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Nuala McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello, you're very welcome to Woman's Hour. Well, as we bask in the glow of Keeley Hodgkinson's gold medal in her 800 metres victory for Team GB in Paris, we are going to speak to five-time Olympian Joe Pavey about that race. It was a storming victory. But Olympic lovers, we also want to indulge you.

What has been your favourite Olympic moment from any Olympics that got under your skin? I was thinking back. I think the first one that kind of pierced through for me was Mary Lou Retton in 1984. She became the first American woman to win a gold medal for individual all-round gymnastics and it had all of us prancing around our back gardens

trying to do something similar with not such aplomb. Listen, you can text the programme. The number is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number is 03700 100 444.

Also, this Olympics allowed men to participate in artistic swimming, previously known as synchronised swimming, for the first time. Now, no man was selected, but we're going to speak to Bill May, who has been trying to be an Olympian for decades. And cook, food writer and author Mira Soda left food behind when burnout hit hard, but she has found her way back to the kitchen and back to the joy of cooking.

She's going to be with me in studio. Staying on food, we're going to discuss how nutrition or malnutrition is affecting IQ levels around the world. Plus, we'll hear about Mary Motorhead, an unconventional female role in a brand new opera by the composer Emma O'Halloran. And she's also going to be here in our Women's Hour studio. But let us begin with last night.

Great Britain's Keely Hodgkinson dominating the Olympic 800 metre final to win gold in Paris and end her wait for a global title. The first Team GB Olympic track medal since 2016. You might have been hearing it in the news bulletin there when Mo Farah won the 5,000 metres and the 10,000 metres at Rio. Now, Keeley, I mean, I suppose maybe we know this, but when you hear it as she won, that she's only the 10th British woman ever to win gold in athletics at an Olympic Games.

She's 22 years old. She had previously finished second at successive world championships after claiming a stunning silver in her Olympic debut. That was Tokyo. She was a teenager in 2021. Let's hear a little of Keely speaking to BBC's Rick Edwards earlier about the victory. It was absolutely incredible. It's everything I could have hoped for.

It felt amazing, the crowd there, the support of my family. I just remember thinking nothing is guaranteed until you cross that line in first place and after so many silvers over the last couple of years in a global championship, I'm just super happy to have upgraded myself to a gold like I've been saying. So it's all nice when it comes together. Once you cross that line, I think the first thing you actually feel is relief. Like you said, there was so much pressure and I've never had that much to contend with before. I've been, you know, a contender for a gold medal. But yeah, to have it, people, you know, writing me down as the gold medal favourite is such a privileged position to be in. But also kind of scary and it is a lot to deal with.

So I was just super happy that I was such a great team around me to help me deal with that. And there was just a mixture of joy, excitement, relief, stress. It's all been over now, but it was amazing. It was amazing to watch let me bring in joe pavy five-time olympian the first british track athlete to do so who represented team gb at every olympic games from 2000 to 2016 welcome joe where were you watching how were you watching oh yeah at home i was on the edge of my sofa and then obviously jumped to the air when she won the gold. But, yeah, Keely was just so amazing.

She was absolutely fantastic. And you hear herself saying what pressure she was under. And she really was under a lot of pressure. The whole country was waiting to see her run. And she delivered and, you know, showed such composure and focus to go through those rounds with all that intense pressure. And she's still only 22 years old. So, yeah, it was absolutely fantastic. Yeah, because they were kind of scanning to her face even before the race.

I'm like, oh, that's quite a lot of pressure for such young shoulders. But what does it take to run a race like that? I noticed they were calling it a perfectly controlled run. What does that mean? Yeah, I mean, basically, K mean basically keely you know took the race by the scruff of the neck she controlled it from the outset there was never any sort of worry that she was tucked in on the curb boxed in and oh she's going to be able to get out is she going to get boxed in not be able to get out to the end she was always in control so she went to the front

fairly early on and controlled the race the other competitors were looking at her and the first lap was probably a bit slower than keely would have imagined it would have been it was still obviously very quick but it was 58.3 which was slower than it'd been in the semi-final but it meant that coming around to the final bend eventually there were actually more people in contention you could see um you know the world champion mary moria watching her closely she was watching her closely was tracking her the whole way and that final bend you know they were all kind of there but keely obviously looked the best and once she you know put her foot down changed gear just at the start of that home straight the the others had no answer she just took off and

you know they were just left in her wake and I think Mary Marat actually paid the price a bit for tracking Keely so obsessively by keeping wine that she didn't actually get the silver she ends up getting the bronze and then you had yeah and then you got Sige de Gouma sneaking free for the silver but there was no doubt about who was going to get the gold. I mean, yeah, but she had to deliver, didn't she? You know, she had run that amazing British record in the London Diamond League, 154-61, which was unbelievable. And, you know, all that pressure on her,

it's still, you know, you're not a machine. You still have to get it all right. You still have to taper right, get the nutrition right. You have to get the tactics right. You have to deal with the nerves and control them all these things she had to do to deliver such a not just one brilliant race but you know the heat the semi-final and then recover after only one day to run so superbly in that final yeah i'm just remembering as well joe she literally they put her foot on the gas as you say and then just pulled away from the rest

of them leaving them in her wake but how much of it and you've gone through all these varying I suppose competing concerns that there are when you're running that race. If I was to you know put it into psychological and physical is it 50-50 or something else? It's both isn't it? I mean course, you have to be very fit physically, you know, the hours and hours of training, but the mental focus is so important as well, because there is the nerves, you get to the warm up track, you know, you're there to do that task. And it's kind of controlling those nerves and channeling them in the right direction. How do you do that, though? That's the bit I'm often when they're like getting ready to start and I'm sure their legs must be shaking.

Yeah I think you do get it with experience as in that's why they say you know it's great to take you know the young and experienced athletes to the games because maybe the next games they'll be ready having gone through that process because you do learn over time to channel those nerves but the nerves will make you perform better than you've ever done if you can channel them in the right direction but it's kind of knowing what your routine is you go to the warm-up area you know what your warm-up is you know you know what you do the maybe the jog the stretches the drills everything you do you know you might have certain music you listen to and you kind of have to also keep those nerves very well controlled because you have to go to

what's called a call room which is usually half an hour to 40 minutes before your actual event and you're sat in a room with all the other competitors that you're going to race against all sort of some people look at each other some people chatting some people wanting to be in their own zone and then you've got to really keep your mind where it needs to be she's probably visually rehearsing in her mind her crossing the line winning that gold medal doing that mental rehearsal but keeping yourself calm and then walking out you know you've got that moment where you're introduced to the crowd and then that moment where you stand on the start line, maybe take a deep breath. Think, right, now I've got this job to do and being able to execute it like she did is a rare talent, really, to get it so right when it really matters. It is difficult. And yeah, I mean, totally admire her. She was just fantastic.

I feel nervous even as you talk us through the various rituals that you need to do. You know, I was reading, of course, so many articles on her this morning, but some are even saying that she could be medal in Tokyo we have to remember she got the silver there and she was only 19 years old and then she went on to win a silver in the world championships in 2022 and 2023 and this year she'd taken up you know a massive amount she'd gone up a peg or two to the point where rather than being a contender like like she was saying herself, she was the outright favourite and she delivered. But she's only 22 years old. Most people would be absolutely thrilled to even have a chance of being selected for the team, for Team GB, if they're only 22. And she's got years ahead of her. And, you know, really, she should be at a stage where she can get faster, you know.

Because you competed, as I mentioned, five Olympics, incredible as well as your career progressed. Is there a point, and I know you've raced in various lengths, 10,000 metres in particular, but is there for 800 metres, a particular age where you're considered in your prime? I think, you know, there's different ages

of being in a prime for different events I think with um 5,000 10,000 people tend to be in their peak a little bit later but um you know you see um Kelly Holmes right at the end of her career uh winning the double gold in Athens um you know in 2004 and that was so exciting and she'd had years of racing and it was at that stage where she finally won the double gold after years of struggling with injury and adversity but with Keely she started very young you know she's got Olympic gold when she's right at the start of her career and a lot of people are sort of thinking about retiring once they've achieved Olympic gold aren't they whereas for Keely she's right at the start.

So I definitely think, you know, she could definitely be like the best ever. She's the third British woman to win the 800 with Anne Packer winning it in 1964 and Kelly winning it in 2004. But for Keeley, I mean, she would be expected to be more in her prime at the next Games, definitely. Lots of messages coming in because I was asking them about their favourite Olympic moment, you know, and there is one when Kelly Holmes won

the unexpected gold as a stand-in. Not sure which Olympics, but we'll never forget the look on her face. Legend, here's another. My best Olympic moment was London. Usain Bolt's conversation with his young kitminder

before his 100 metre race. That's the world's finest sprinter. Could have had a friendly, personal conversation because she looked after him. Another, Anne says, Russian gymnast, Olga Korbut. What about you? Do you have a moment, whether it's one of your own? Let's talk about your favourite Olympic moment

of your own first. And then I'll ask you about anyone else's that you were watching. I think for me just having the real honour of being able to compete in a home games at London 2012 I competed in the 5,000 and the 10,000 and it kept me going at that stage in my career I was thinking about retirement for the track but that dangling carrot of being able to compete in a home games kept me going and for any British athlete walking out and standing in that stadium

the crowd noise was so immense and the crowd followed me around each lap and it was just amazing and thanks to all the volunteers the games makers you know everyone who helped the country really got behind it and you know felt a really privileged moment to be able to do that so that has to be it for me but as far as watching um you know my close teammate dame kelly holmes winning the double in 2004 and i was you know um a teammate of hers and we were you know always like rooming together and when she won the 800 she had to then prepare for the 1500 and we were sat in our athlete accommodation having a hot chocolate together when she'd just won the Olympics. And I thought, wow.

I was like, Kelly, you've won the Olympic Games, but she was still the same old Kel. And she said, well, what do you expect? You know, I thought the whole country wants to talk to her now. And here I am sitting with her having a hot chocolate because she couldn't party because she still had the 1500 meters to do. And not a drop of anything in the hot chocolate, just milk. No, not at that time, no. How wonderful though,

you must have so many great memories. Thank you for speaking to us about, of course, Keeley's Wind. I do also want to mention though, because Team GB, the Team Sprint Cycling had Sophie Kepwell, Katie Marchant and Emma Finucane celebrating a gold medal as well.

It was a pretty exciting day yesterday. Oh, it was. It was amazing. And seeing, well, there was a mum, wasn't she? And seeing the little boy there when she'd done so well. And yeah, I mean, the cyclists have done amazing as well. And Team GB have been brilliant and there's still so much more to come. so it's very exciting. Thank you very much for coming on Jo Pavey, five-time Olympian as we indulge your

Olympic loves this morning. Okay, I'm asking for some of the favourites. Here's Becky, she's got quite a few. Florence Griffith joined her on track. Jan Zielinski, javelin and throwing. Jonathan Edwards, triple jumping and Kelly Holmes. Kelly Holmesinski, Javelin and Throwing. Jonathan Edwards, Triple Jumping. And Kelly Holmes. Kelly Holmes keeps coming up.

800 and 1500. 84844 if you want to get in touch. Let me turn now, though, to cook, food writer and author, Mira Soda. Her new cookbook beautifully takes us on a journey of the restorative power of cooking for the ones you love. It's called Dinner.

120 vegan and vegetarian recipes for the most important meal of the restorative power of cooking for the ones you love. It's called Dinner. 120 vegan and vegetarian recipes for the most important meal of the day. And we're going to talk about why dinner is. Mira says it was written in the midst of a difficult personal time and also much reflection. There are delicious recipes.

The photographs are beautiful. Persian herb, lime and kidney stew, sprout and chilli peanut noodles, miso butter greens pasta. Persian herb, lime and kidney stew, sprout and chilli peanut noodles, miso butter greens pasta. I mean, I loved the beans on toast, which was very fancy, I have to say, not what you're thinking.

But I want to take up the book and read a little to Mira. Mira, welcome to the Woman's Hour studio. Hello, thank you so much for having me on. So the introduction you wrote to the book, which I have here, it might not be what people expect from your cookery book. It begins with a couple of years ago, I lost my love for food. I didn't want to shop. I didn't want to cook. I ate for necessity, not pleasure. That's not

what we would think when we think Mirasoda. Tell us more. Well, yes, I wrote Dinner following a very difficult period in my life where I fell out of love with life and cooking. So in 2021, I had a breakdown. And by that, I mean, my brain and my body just stopped functioning properly. And I lost my love for life as well as food um but food had been you know it's part of my DNA it had given me so much joy and so much pleasure um and it was also my day job as a food writer and I knew that I needed to find my way back and fast um but and and you know months my I was relying on my husband, Hugh, to do all of the family cooking. And he was looking after our newborn baby and my toddler. And he was also doing all of the family. And so one day when

he was struggling, he said, I'd love you to cook me a meal. And it wasn't him asking me to cook for him. It was him saying, listen, I'm struggling. Can you care for me? Love me. And I woke up, I ran into the kitchen, I grabbed a pan, some lentils, some coconut milk, and I made him this gorgeous Malaysian dal. And something just happened in that moment where I really felt like I'd been given the keys back to the kitchen. I felt the energy fizzing in my fingertips again I just, I really wanted to cook for him I was cooking out of joy and out of pleasure and it gave me some purpose

and so I started cooking again but I stepped back from work and I needed to do that and I asked myself what is it that I want to eat and that's, and I really needed to do that in order to bring myself back to the kitchen and find my love for what I wanted to eat again

And then, this is the book. It's all about dinner. Why dinner? So dinner. So I was writing these recipes down in this little orange notebook that I have. And I noticed that there was just that one meal that I wanted to focus on. And I think it's partly because breakfast is eaten on the fly. Lunch can often be leftovers. Dinner, I found just planning it had the power to ground me and cooking it gave me a sense of achievement. I wasn't cooking every day, but when I did, when everything else felt really turbulent,

it felt like something I could do step by step. And then actually eating it with friends and family allowed me to come back together with the people that I love again. And I think I just realised how much power there was in this one meal and how much it was giving me back. Let's talk about The Little Orange Notebook, which also makes an appearance in the book, a photograph of it. How was it then, considering that turbulent period you had been through, to try and collate these recipes, to try and create this book? Well, this wasn't the book that I was meant to write.

But I just found that I, you know, at first I was writing recipes. So this Orange Notebook, I should say, I started when my daughter was born when Aria was born and it's really a family cookbook so it's just a place for us to write down the things that we all love and that might be mac and cheese or nigella's like birthday cake um and I just started writing a little note in there and and I I found that that it filled up quite quickly and at first there were things like eggs over rice or omelettes, masala beans on toast or a quick sort of kimchi and tomato pasta. They were all things that spoke to me and my soul and helped me to bring myself back to life again and so it wasn't really much of a collation as it was just things that I really loved eating and I feel like the recipes previously when I've written cookbooks, it's been about traveling around India, you know, and I'll take a dogleg turn and find a dish that I must share with people.

But it's for other people. Whereas this book is actually quite a selfish book in that these are recipes that I love. They're recipes that I wrote for me. But it's still work, no? At the end of the day, just coming full time. Because I think people, that might resonate with people, this fact you were in a fortuitous position earlier in your career to be able to have a career doing something that you love,

your passion, which was food. But then that became like work. Yes. Now you're back working fully, shall we say, with food. But is it different now? It is different now because, so I haven't written a book in five years, I should say. So it was a really organic process. I wasn't, I had to step back from deadlines. And I think you're right, like, you know, how do you find your stamina for something that you might have lost your love for? And I think that's where I thought, and this where I found you know cooking for joy actually gave me back my pleasure and the keys to the kitchen again and this was I think the

key to it is that's where I started when I first started writing about food was recording family recipes and they meant so much to me and I think in the process of just working to Relentless Deadlines I'd lost that and I needed to come back to it. And so I am working now, but I'll try and integrate the recipes into family life. And so it's not work and then food. And so the recipes in this book, I think, take that into account.

So there's lots of bung it in the oven dishes that I love to do so I can still listen to my daughters telling me about who farted in maths that day when they come back from school. And there's like lots of one pot dishes that I can just bung things into. I like the Iraqi stew. Is that one that kind of? Well, that is something that I cook a lot of, especially when I go to an Airbnb place, because you can just take a couple of cans of beans and a tin of tomatoes, a few spices and you're good. That's just one that that jumped out at me that I was thinking, yeah, lovely and

hearty as well. But all of them look absolutely beautiful. But you know, you mentioned your family there. Let's talk about this. Because they were living in Uganda. They were business people there. Yes, that's right. But like so many, and I think there'll be a lot of our listeners as well, that would

have had Indian heritage living in one of the countries in East Africa but were then expelled. Yes. So talk me through how that has informed your life and your cooking and your work. Yeah, it's been so integral to what I do. So my mum's family was very wealthy in Uganda, and they had to give up all of their businesses, all of their money, and they came over to Scunthorpe because there was a job at the steelworks there for my grandfather. And my, they were, you know, went from being cooked for to my mum having to suddenly cook for the family. And she would cook, you know, all of the produce from Lincolnshire. I mean, it's amazing for produce and then fashion it into very thrifty,

very thrifty dishes. And she would buy, you know, she would go into the store cupboard and buy lots of tins of pulses or actually she'd cook pulses from scratch. So she'd buy five kilogram bags of those. And so, you know, I grew up with her sort of being incredibly thrifty, not wasting, teaching me how to, you know, find beautiful produce. Always make sure that the hats of the aubergines are green and like loving. You love aubergines, I'm thinking. I love aubergines. I love vegetables.

And so they make an appearance. Back to your mum. But she gave me a love for she gave me me a love for cooking but she gave me a love of you know using everything you know this with this and fashioning food and making magic out of food that is just very basic and very simple like dusty lentils that might be sat in a packet in your store cupboard um but also she adapted to where she was living and so she would make instead of a mango chutney she made a fallen pear chutney or a fallen apple chutney because that's what she could get hold of.

Or she would curry pheasants because someone would sling a brace of pheasants over the door handle. And that's how I cook now. I love British produce. I love to cook with it. But I like to borrow flavours from countries and cuisines that are used to putting vegetables in the center of the table with ease. Your mother didn't write any of the recipes down.

She didn't. So I learned how to. That was terrifying, by the way, when she told me that. It's like, oh, my goodness, like these recipes have been handed down for generations. And unless I record them, they could die out. And so I went to go and learn to cook with her by her side. And what was amazing about that is not only did I learn how to cook, but I learned that behind every recipe there was a story. And it might have been, you know, what grew by the roadside in Uganda or how she played with baby alligators in the Nile. But it coloured in.

What was so beautiful about that is that I can't visit Uganda. My parents don't want to go back. And so it coloured in this part of my past and my history that I can never visit. And also what was so beautiful about it was that, you know, food is a conversation starter. But that's not just with strangers, like with me and my mum, it gave me a vehicle with which to talk to her and to bond with her about her past and her childhood. And I love that. I love that. It was a really wonderful thing. When I was reading about your mum and you and sharing recipes, I was thinking, it is an inherently perhaps female thing to do.

Like we don't hear about, maybe it does happen, but we don't hear about it as much, of fathers passing down recipes to sons. No, I mean, hopefully that might change now. Yes, perhaps, yes. But I mean, traditionally. Traditionally, it's always been that way. Yes, where the men go out to work and the women are in the kitchen.

And, you know, I think, I hope that with the skills and the tools that we have now with food being such a big thing on the agenda, part of social media, that that may change and that is open. Food is not just for women. Let's talk about the wooden spoon. So my mum gave me the wooden, when she came to this country, she bought a wooden spoon and she must have cooked thousands of meals with it because it has a big dent in one side and it has this beautiful pattern to it. And she gave it to me. And it was a bit like her handing over her recipes. It was quite an emotional moment when she handed it to me. Luckily, she has a partner spoon or other spoon. So I didn't feel like she was hanging up her boots all of a sudden. And it's just something, you know, I feel like recipes are kind of a bit like the wooden spoon. I feel connected to her when I cook with it. But also nobody's alone when

they're cooking a recipe that's written by someone else. It's like a friend in the kitchen. A lovely. Yeah, I like to think like that. And I like to write like that. So hopefully if you're in your kitchen cooking one of my recipes and feeling like I'm giving you what you need in order to succeed with what you're doing. Mira Soda, who is telling us all about her new book, Dinner, it is out now. Thank you so much for speaking to us. Thanks so much for having me.

Lots of you getting in touch also about the Olympics. Let me see. Chris's best Olympic moment. 2012, London, when the only woman from Saudi Arabia was cheered all around the track by the whole stadium. It was generous and very moving. In case you haven't heard, if you haven't been listening, coming up the week after next is Listener Week.

It is a special time of the year when the ideas on this programme are chosen by you. And we're looking for a range of stories. Maybe it's an issue that is making you frustrated, you think we need to talk about. Maybe there's someone

you'd like held to account. Maybe you have a personal story you'd like to share. I remember being very struck last year by a woman who came on and spoke to us about her shoplifting. We spoke to her. Obviously, it was anonymous, but it was interesting to hear her take because we often hear other aspects, for example, of shoplifting in society. Maybe there's something, I don't know, a strange story you've come across that you think might make our listeners laugh that you'd like to share or somebody you feel we should be profiling. You can get in touch

in all the usual ways. The text number is 84844 or you could email us through our website. Thanks for all your messages coming in. Gail, definitely Andy Murray winning gold.

Wonderful moment. Another one, Catherine, 1968, USA, Bob Bayman's jaw-dropping long jump and Dick Fosbury's high jump flop, which changed high jumping forever. Interesting ones.

8-4. 8-4-4. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now. Talk about food. We're going to talk about it a different way now. Talking about food.

We're going to talk about it in a different way now. I want to talk to it in relation to IQ. Do you have any idea what your IQ is? I definitely don't. But apparently this generation

is cleverer than previous generations. According to a study done by Thai and British universities of 72 countries, the average IQ rose by 2.2 points a decade. That's between 1948 and 2020. So going up every decade, 2.2. There's new analysis from The Economist that shows we should not be complacent and that brain development is being hindered across the world. And one of the issues is malnourishment caused by either poverty or poor eating habits, as well as war, even sexism.

Things that mainly impact the lives of women and children, as we have mentioned previously on this programme. So to discuss this, I'm joined by Robert Guest. He's deputy editor of The Economist and wrote the piece, which is based on IQ and why they can decline around the world. Dr. Miria Shekhar who is Global Lead for Nutrition with the World Bank's Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice. Welcome to you both. Robert let me begin with you. How can you measure IQ accurately? Well I personally can, but there are experts who administer tests into lots of people in lots of countries. And what they're discovering, you have slightly different tests at different ages, but what they're discovering is not that human potential has

changed. We haven't evolved in the past century. What they're discovering is that more people are reaching their potential or closer to their potential. And that's because the brain is, evolved in the past century. What they're discovering is that more people are reaching their potential or closer to their potential. And that's because the brain is like any other part of the body. It's just like with muscles, you need food and exercise to develop them, to get fit. With the brain, you need food and stimulation. And what people have discovered increasingly in recent years is that the thing that really matters is the first thousand days after conception. That's when it really matters in the womb and when you're a small baby. So in order to raise the world's IQ, you need to nourish infants better.

So this is called the golden window. And let me turn to you, Mira. So what needs to happen in those thousand days if humans are, let me say those first thousand days start before conception. So it's from preconception until the first two years of life. It's really important to remember that. What happens during that time in terms of the brain is that this is when the most development happens in terms of sensory pathways, language pathways, and even higher cognitive function really develops before the age of two. So what do we need? And if we miss this window of opportunity, it leads to irreversible damage to the brain and its capacities going forward.

What needs to happen at this time? We need to make sure that children are well nourished and they are well stimulated because both of those things are important for young children. And one of the really simple and important things to do at this time in a child's life is, in addition to making sure that moms are well-nourished before they become pregnant, you also want to make sure that once babies are born that they get breastfeeding. And it's something that's available all over the world, but not always practiced. But also some women are not able to breastfeed

or may struggle without the right support. We may have women that are malnourished before conception. So that isn't always a potential. And if it's not, what else are you asking for authorities to be able to do? Well, let me say that for 97% of the women in the world, they can breastfeed. It's often the environment that we live in. There's a recent report by the Lancet Journal, the Lancet breastfeeding series, as it's called, that highlights the role of commercial determinants of health and the environments that we live in. The bombardment of advertisements telling women that they can't breastfeed, that they need alternative foods, is absolutely misleading.

But I'm thinking in severe situations of many of the conflicts that we have covered, where women are finding it difficult to get food for themselves, nutritional for their babies, perhaps. Also, for example, in some cultures of sexism, it may be that the men eat first before the women or the more nutritious food, for example. And I might throw this back to Robert as well. There must be significant cultural issues here. You want me to answer that? Sure. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I did for this report was to, as well as talking to lots of experts, including the wonderful Mira, was to travel to three countries where this is a problem, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Uganda, and start with war. I mean, I was talking to a lady in Uganda who'd fled from the war in Congo,

and you could just see how this had affected her ability to get hold of food you know a bunch of men with guns burned down the house destroyed all her uh property and she had to walk uh i mean hundreds of of miles to get to to safety and during that whole time she was pregnant and there was nothing to eat she just had like river water and the occasional bit of fruit and you could see the results with her her child. She was much slower, unfortunately, than the child that she had later when there was food available. So there are times when you don't get food. And that's obviously a huge problem. Now, globally, that has got better. The proportion of children who are malnourished to the point of stunting has fallen from 33% in 2000 to 22% now, but it should be zero, right? It should be zero. And that other point you mentioned about sexism,

I mean, this is a big problem in some countries. There are a lot of places where the men say, well, I'm the man, I have to be strong to defend the family, therefore uh i'm going to eat the meat so that i have uh energy um and so on so the and so the women get the protein last and they don't get enough and that means if they're pregnant that their babies don't get enough um you know protein and often micronutrients and that's a huge problem um coming back to the figures also Robert that were in your article the 2.2 increase in the average IQ a decade is there a maximum potential that can be reached I know we're speaking about those that are malnourished that are held back from IQ being increased. Yeah like I said I mean nourishing people well is not increasing the maximum potential.

It's just making it more likely that you'll reach it. So what you've seen over the past century is that people are much better nourished and much more stimulated. They're much more likely to go to school than they were before. And so the average has gone up. The potential hasn't gone up and the when we're talking about raising the world's iq what we're talking about is eliminating the deprivation that is stopping people from achieving their potential and so this is mostly in um poor and middle-income countries it's not such a big problem in the rich world because people are much better nourished there except for if we think about and i'll bring mary in on, at the other end of the scale, Robert and Mira, is obesity, right?

So many countries that are dealing with that, that are developed, Mira, ultra processed diets. We've heard about that as well. Is that something that can impact IQ at the other end of the scale? Obesity by itself is not necessarily not been documented to impact IQ, but it has certainly been documented to impact productivity. So how is that? Sorry, how come? Well, obese individuals are more likely to have to suffer from what we refer to as non-communicable diseases, cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. That being the case, that means they are much more likely to be absent from work, higher health care costs, so on and so forth. In fact, there was a very interesting study done by the World Obesity Federation that said in 2019, we were losing about 1.8% of the world's GDP, approximately $2 trillion per year to obesity-related issues. If we don't do anything about it, by 2060, that will go up to 3.6 percent. So it'll double. And that means $18 trillion lost every year to obesity-related issues. And as you said, there are ways to deal with it,

that policies that governments can put in place that can help to address obesity. Which some countries have done. But when it comes to malnourishment in the sense of not getting enough food, as we were speaking about with Robert, for whatever reasons, what would you like to see happen there? You're asking me or asking Meera?

I was asking Meera, forgive me, just as Robert was bringing up. Meera, is there any policies that you would like to see governments bring in, in that sense? So when we talk about malnutrition, as you said, earlier, we're talking about both undernutrition and overweight and obesity. For undernutrition, we really do know what needs to be done, a lot of what needs to be done to address undernutrition. It's about scaling up these programs in countries

and at the same time putting in policies in place that would help to scale up these programs and change the environment that people are living in, including advertisements for ultra-processed foods, unhealthy foods and the like. And, you know, in 2019, about 40 countries had put in place, for example, taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages.

In 2023, that's 117 countries. That covers about 57% of the world. Often a debate about them as well, but I shall leave it there. Dr. Meera Shekhar, Global Lead for Nutrition with the World Bank's Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice. And thanks also to Robert Guest, Deputy Editor of The Economist, who

wrote the piece. A little bit of Olympics. Let's see. Best Olympic moment. Being in London 2012 at Super Saturday with my children when Jessica Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah all won gold within 45 minutes. What a day., Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah all won gold within 45 minutes. What a day.

And Greg Rutherford lives in our village around the corner from where we live. He says, so brilliant. There's a gold long jump line showing Greg's winning 8.31 metres, which local kids can try to emulate. Oh, that's amazing. Best Olympic moment from another.

Going to the opening ceremony rehearsal to watch my daughter, who was a dancing nurse. Oh yeah, remember them. In my humble opinion, Mary Peters topped the lot by some considerable margin. That's from Justin,

who is listening today in Reading. Thanks to all of you for getting in touch. I'm staying with Olympics. Going to one of my favourite sports to watch. It's artistic swimming, previously known as synchronised swimming. This Olympics in Paris, it was set to be the first Games in history

where men could participate alongside women. Now, under rule changes announced by the International Olympic Committee that was in December 2022, a maximum of two men can form part of an eight-athlete team event, but not the two-athlete duet event. But, much to the disappointment of my next guest,

no male athletes from any country were selected to represent. My guest is the American Bill May. He's been campaigning for the change for the past 30 years. And at the age of 45, this would have been his final chance to be an Olympian. He's considered a trailblazer in the sport as a competitor, winning at the World Championships, and also considered a trailblazer as a coach. He wants men to complement women in artistic swimming, not compete against them, he told me. When I spoke to him, he began telling me what artistic swimming is all about.

We're in the pool eight, 10, 12 hours a day. And then we're developing new rules to make this sport more objective rather than subjective. We're adding another event and it's the very first time that it's being put into the Olympics. It's called the acrobatic event. And we're throwing people.

You see Simone Biles, you know, doing her tumble pass and she's going three meters there, 12 feet in there and it's it's the same for artistic swimming this acrobatic event we're throwing athletes out of the water and there's nothing to stand on there's nothing to bounce on so you know we look for the gymnast for inspiration to just make our lives higher and stronger and so we have three events plus our duets at the olympics so the moment in the sport, it's just growing and growing and growing.

So, yes, it may be difficult, but it's also showing that the opportunities in artistic swimming are endless. What are your first memories of artistic swimming? I mean, I guess we would have called it synchronized swimming back in the day. My first experience was my sister asking to do this weird sport that I had never heard of. So we kind of just went to this pool. I saw some other guys doing synchronized swimming and I thought I would never be able to do anything like that. So I just did it for fun. And here I am, 35 years later. 35 years later. That's incredible. What a career. But what was it like, Bill, in those early days, whether you were 10 or 12 or 15, getting on teams, competing when it has

traditionally been a sport with women? I was about to say dominated by women. It's not even that. I'd go one step further. Well, when I started the sport, I didn't realize that there weren't a lot of men in the sport. I just did it because there was something new. It's something that I decided I enjoyed to do. And it wasn't until people started asking me, why am I doing a women's sport? That I thought, well, it's not a women's sport. I'm a man and I'm doing it. So it's not anyone's sport. It's everyone's sport. So, you know, until then, I didn't realize anything different. And then as people started to ask me, then I thought, well, why can't anyone do any sport that they like? And then that just became, you know, like kind of my stubbornness

to say, OK, well, if I want to do a sport, I'm going to do it. And there's not anyone that will tell me or any athlete what sport they can enjoy to do. Do we know why men were not part of this sport? Because as we know, traditionally, men were in most of the sports and women were not. Well, to be honest, men were in the early stages of the sport. If you look back to Billy Rose's Aquacade and you look at the Esther Williams films, they always showcased men and women swimming together. And then somewhere how the rules evolved, it just kind of moved forward without men. And then World Aquatics, all these federations

around the world started to see, okay, you know, if we need the sport to grow and to prosper and to be more inclusive, there's nothing left but to add men and add all the athletes that we can possibly inspire to join the sport. It's quite poignant, I think, looking at when the rules change, because this is something you've been pushing for for your entire life. We're in the middle of the Olympics at the moment. Growing up, it looked like you would never be able to compete for the Olympics. The rules just changed recently, correct? Correct.

The rules just changed. Actually, this will be the first time that men are allowed into the Olympic Games. Fortunately, there aren't any men chosen to swim with the teams in the Olympics. But in 1998, my coach decided that she had this vision. She was a visionary, and she was also very stubborn and she noticed that men weren't there to compete against the women but to compliment them so she created the event called the mixed duet and we we actually formatted our routine after tour valentine and we swam to bolero so it was that music will always be special. Their routine is always special. And she took something that was so beautiful into another sport that was relatable.

And then we just built on that. So now it was now a man, a woman doing a routine that was completely different than two females or if two men were to swim. Are there any differences when it comes to men and women in artistic swimming? Yes's many differences and it's like any sport if you look at gymnastics if you look at ice skating it's not something or again where men and women should compare each other but it's more to complement each other and to show the different strengths of the sport men have different physical strengths they have different ways of moving. And then just logistically, men develop differently within all sports. So it's something that needs to be nurtured

by the coaches and further education to figure out ways to get men involved in the sport, knowing that they don't need to be like the females, but they are their own individuals. I was reading that the response times are different. Who's faster? Well, you know, anytime you can say, well, I'm faster or they're faster.

The overall men and women are just different. They look different. You know, in the water, men don't have full swim suits. They don't put makeup on necessarily all the time or, you know, it's just they're different beings. So, you know, you can compare them, but it will never be 100% one way or another. You weren't picked for this team and I'm sorry about that. I think a lot of people were sorry about it. And the fact that you're 45 means that maybe you won't in a coming Olympics either. How hard was that to kind of, I don't know, accept?

It was difficult because, of course, every athlete wants to go to the Olympics. It's a place where you inspire younger generations, not just artistic swimmers, but you inspire those younger athletes that see the Olympics and say, hey, I can see, you know, there's inclusion in these sports. And they don't understand the logistics or the politics, but they see that everyone's accepted and they can be in a community that everyone has accepted. So I think it's a missed opportunity to inspire younger athletes to realize that if they dream, they can go for it. And it is disappointing for me not to be in the Olympics, but this sport has given me so many opportunities. This would have been the cherry on top, but I don't regret being in the sport. I don't regret being involved,

trying to make the Olympic team because it made me a better coach and it's pushing me to be a better artistic swimmer. And as I speak to you, you're still wearing the USA sporting jacket as well on my screen. So you're still there and supporting them. But it is interesting, right? Because there's a number of male artistic swimmers. None of them are on any of the teams, is my understanding, at the Olympics. Why do you think that is? Well, I think it takes a little bit more

nurturing of a male athlete. You may see strengths and weaknesses, but the biggest strength is making history. And I think, again, this is a missed opportunity. But I've had a lot of walls put in front of me, and I'm sure every man in artistic swimming has. So I think this will just make us work harder and fight stronger to see that more men are involved. What would you say to critics of men in artistic swimming that say that women already don't have as many opportunities as men to win medals or compete in sports at the Olympics? Well, I would say right now we're 50-50 at the Olympics and it's a beautiful time for all sports. So I think artistic swimming, every sport should be all inclusive for everyone. Because sports, it joins people, it unifies people.

The Olympics, there's that Olympic movement that unifies the world. So why not take it where it's inclusive, accepting, and say, this is sport, everyone should be involved. And this is where we can come together and just basically show love for everyone without boundaries. I often speak to women here that are in a male dominated profession, industry sphere. And I often ask them whether they were welcomed by the others that were there first. How was it for you? Well, I've always I've been very lucky. Again, I'm stubborn. So if someone wants to keep me out, then I would push harder. But my teammates have been very supportive. My coaches have been very supportive.

When I first joined my club, Santa Clara, it wasn't accepted by our board of directors at first because they weren't sure where the sport was going. But my coach, Chris Carver, again, she knew how the future had to be for our sport to grow. So even if there was a few people that wanted to keep men out, there was others that just got behind me. And nothing is done without your army. And I really feel like I've had an army to help me in this sport. And I think that's for all sports. I welcome women in every sport, and I feel like's for all sports. I welcome women in every sport and I feel like they should do it.

And if you look at women's rugby here, you know, there's, you don't see, or you haven't heard of a lot of women doing rugby, but then like say the American team, they just got a bronze medal. So it's an opportunity to inspire. You know, it's not about gender, but it's just about inspiring younger athletes

to reach for their goals. Bill May and you can catch the Olympics on the BBC, on TV, iPlayer and BBC Sounds. Right. Let us turn for the next five minutes to Emma O'Halloran and her opera Mary Motorhead, a one woman show with a protagonist serving 18 years for murder in the Lountjoy prison in Dublin. Great to have you with us. How did you end up writing an opera? I believe you were not steeped in it. It's not something you've done before. But now you're at the Kilkelly Arts Festival after coming from New York and L.A. It's been a bit of a wild journey.

Yeah, opera was never anything that was on my radar. It's such an impossibly big world. It's hard to get your foot in the door. But when I was finishing up my studies in the States, I got an email from an independent opera company producer, Beth Morrison. She's a trailblazer in the field of opera, and she was setting up an initiative called Next Generation, which was a search for new voices in opera. And they were hosting a competition. I submitted a piece of music and I kind of made my way through these various rounds and I ended up winning the competition and it kind of got me a foot in the door. And that's sort of where opera began for me. So Mary, the character in your opera,

what did you want to do with these female characters that's different from other operas that you've looked at? I think for opera, and I'm by no means an expert, but as an outsider coming in, it seemed to me that the treatment of women in historical operas wasn't great. They don't have a great track record for surviving. They often don't make it out alive, let's be honest. True, yeah. So I just thought, you know, if I'm only going to ever get one chance to write an opera,

who knows if I'll ever get the chance again. I want to do something that's different and, you know, shows a really strong female character who isn't a heroine, isn't a saint, isn't perfect, but is all of these different things because, you know, we should, as women, be allowed to be messy, complicated characters on stage as well. So you decided to set it in, us Dubliners call the joy.

It's Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. And I'm just wondering, what was it? I know you had an uncle who wrote a play and then you asked him, Marco Halloran, whether you could use it to create your opera. What was it about that particular setting that you're like, yes, this is how I'm going to make my operatic debut? I don't know, there's something just exciting about hearing an opera song in English,

in our dialect, you know, using very straightforward language. It just felt down to earth. And for me, opera isn't really about the, you know, the kings and the queens doing things. It's an opportunity to illuminate the sort of extraordinary inner worlds of people. So it just felt like a cool challenge to be able to work with something like this. What sort of music did you do before, Emma? I'm a composer, so I would write for classical instruments. I work with electronics, so bits and pieces of everything.

It kind of changes project to project. You sing as well, right? A little bit, I'm probably not going to sing. I'm not going to ask you to, I love that you thought I might ask you to do a few bars for me. But you know, I mentioned briefly there, and I was reading the reviews, fabulous in LA and New York, but you're down in Kilkenny now, the Kilkenny Arts Festival, which is on from the 8th to the 11th of August. What's it like doing it on Irish soil? And also people, I suppose, having been cognizant of what Mount Joy Prison is. It's an absolute joy to be able to bring it back to Ireland.

I think, you know, with new opera, often the questions are, like, does it work as an opera? Is it successful? And to have been able to bring it to New York and LA and establish that it works. We've been able to come into the room and just really ask different questions like, what else can we discover about these characters? And it's just really exciting to have family and friends able to attend as well. So it's just magic. Are you going to stay with opera? I know you have another of your works, Trade, also an opera at the Kilkenny Festival. Are you going back to the original music

or are you going to stay with opera for a while? I think I've been, you know, bitten by the bug. It's amazing to be able to explore different interests. Like I love psychology. I love collaboration. I love being in a room with people and opera kind of brings together all of these different things.

Yeah. And just before I let you go, and I should let you go because we're coming to the end of the programme. Was there any resistance to a newbie coming into such a hallowed world of operatic halls? You know, the times are changing.

I think from my experience, you know, in opera, you commission and award opportunities based on potential. Oftentimes that's given to men. And for women, you have to have a proven track record. So I'm lucky that I got my foot in the door

and I hope that it inspires other institutions to take chances on newbies as well. And now you have a track record all the way. Emma O'Halloran on speaking to us about Mary Motorhead, which is set in Montjoe Prison. Back with you tomorrow. Gardening and Virginia Woolf. Join me. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, it's Simon and David here from When It Hits The Fan. And we'd just like to tell you about our bonus series of mini episodes that's

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so you don't miss them. They may just change your working life. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

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