"You can taste it in the air": your stories of life in polluted cities

EUROPE

Warsaw, Poland

“The air pollution problem in Poland is beyond any western standards. Despite poor conditions, Poland has done nothing to reduce used car imports, promote renewable energy, protect green areas or rationalise precaution levels. (Right now an alert is announced at 600% of the norm and the ministry for environment refuses to change that level because “they would have to announce the alert too often”.)

“Where I live (Warsaw) the air quality is very bad. The intensive development of apartment buildings in suburban areas without proper public transportation pushes people into cars and reduces green space. Over the last decade Warsaw suffered a net loss of 160,000 trees.

“Recently as more groups join the demand for better air, the city hall pretends they care, but there is no real action. I became a father five months ago and air quality has become a reason to stay indoors against our will for most of the winter. I’m a member of Warsaw’s city activist group Miasto Jest Nasze (the City is Ours), an organisation which set up Warsaw’s smog alert.” (Tymon Radwański)

London, UK

Ed H-B (@EdH_B)

3 week old #airpollution filters frm cycling in Central #London – everyone should wear masks in #protest & tweet dirty filters! #cleanairnow pic.twitter.com/b34puftPGM

February 14, 2017

Bath, UK

“Levels of nitrogen dioxide on several roads leading into the city have exceeded the EU limits for years. It’s said that people living off the southern approach road into the city are likely to die nine years younger than those living on the hill on the opposite side of the city, three miles away.” (Louise Hidalgo, Bathampton Meadows Alliance)

AFRICA

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

A school boy walks past smoke and fumes emitted from a dump in Port Harcourt. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

“Residents of Port Harcourt became aware of a black substance falling from the sky last November. Authorities said an investigation was going to be carried out but not much happened until late January and early February when this pollution became unbearable.

“A lot of residents believed local refineries were the likely cause and took to social media to ask the state government to act. Finally, a committee was set up and a report released showing the soot is petroleum based, but the government said they couldn’t determine which activities were the cause.” (Babajide Odulaja)

“If you wipe surfaces indoors and outdoors with a white towel or tissue paper, you get a black smudge. Perhaps more worrisome is that if you clean your nostrils with a white material, you come up with a jet black residue. If you walk barefooted, the soles of your feet turn black.” (Eben Dokubo)

(Update: The situation was declared an emergency this week. According to reports the state government have shut down a Chinese construction company apparently responsible for the pollution.)

AMERICAS

Santiago, Chile

Envigado, Colombia

“Air pollution is visible here on most days. You can taste it in the air. I believe it’s caused by low-quality diesel, and the high number of motor vehicles. There is no rail system and freight is transported by road. Heavy vehicles emit a thick, black exhaust that is frightening to see and lingers in the air.” (Anonymous)

Mexico City, Mexico

Los Angeles, US

“I grew up in Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s. I remember days where the air pollution was so bad your eyes would burn and it hurt – actually was painful – to take a deep breath. Combine that with the heat and a shining grey sky that beat down on you, where the soup was so thick all you could see of the sun was a diffuse bright patch in the sky, where even the grass turned brown and the trees died from the pollution, and you have a hell on earth of the sort described by Tolkein when he wrote about the wastelands of Mordor.” (EvilMidnightBomber)

“I remember walking home from my grade school in the late 60s literally crying like I had been teargassed the air was so bad. My parents said it was even worse before incinerators were banned.” (MakeBeerNotWar)

ASIA

Shanghai, China

“We celebrate when we see blue sky and share pictures with each other on WeChat. I purchased an air purifier for my home – we have no idea if it helps. We just feel secure, it’s like buying insurance: you suddenly feel good.” (Artem)

“When the air pollution is bad, many people in my office develop coughs and sick days are taken. I like to walk or ride a bicycle home, but I always need to check the air quality before leaving work. Today I decided to take the bus home because the air quality reading was 150. I have also cancelled weekend plans with friends due to the unhealthy air levels. It can be very depressing.

“When the neighbouring city Hangzhou hosted the G20 and they shut down all the factories for two weeks it was amazing. Shanghai had clear blue skies the whole time. It shows if they really wanted to improve the quality of life and health of their residents they could, but they are not willing to unless a group of rich, powerful people are coming.” (Anonymous)

Beijing, China

Hong Kong

“Often, I don’t take my baby outside as I am so concerned about the effect on him. I wear a face mask on the days it is above an orange rating. My husband exercises at the gym instead of running when it’s bad. I often have a bitter taste or thick feeling on my mouth and tongue when I walk home at rush hour. This is a serious and scary problem, it’s obvious in the pollution visible on buildings, skin problems, difficulty breathing, chest pain and coughs.” (Anonymous)

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Protesters march in Ulaanbaatar on 28 January to demand government action to reduce air pollution. Photograph: Davaanyam Delgerjargal/EPA

“We are a part of the #BreatheMongolia and #MongolsAreSuffering initiatives. Protests and demonstrations in Ulaanbaatar have been raising awareness of the dangerous air pollution in the city and calling upon the government for solutions to the crisis as soon as possible. Thousands of demonstrators marched holding black balloons that represent their damaged lungs caused by air pollution and hung the balloons on the fence around the government house, aiming to show that around 500 children die annually in Mongolia due to air pollution.

“It has officially been declared that air pollution in Ulaanbaatar has reached disaster levels, exceeding 120 times the safe limit; 80% of the air pollution comes from the districts of ger (traditional circular felted tents) households, where people burn coal to stay warm.

“The top three diseases that resulted in the largest number of deaths in Mongolia in 2013 were air pollution-related. Studies show that air pollution exposure also results in miscarriage, premature birth and has an impact on the intellectual and physical development of a child. We know of someone who had multiple miscarriages while living in the city and had to move out to the countryside in order to give birth successfully. The people of Mongolia deserve clean air.” (Nomi Ganbold and JaRed Cameron)

Delhi, India

Sebastian Taylor (@DilliSeb)

@guardiancities Taken last November mid morning here in Delhi. Only when this extreme did it become a (minor) political issue…for a week. pic.twitter.com/aVd0snXhuP

February 13, 2017

“I am asthmatic and air pollution makes me sick. In 2014 I packed up and left Delhi, moved to the mountains. But I have to keep coming back to the city and fighting air pollution has become a personal battle for me. I have seen healthy friends become sick in November 2016 as air pollution was at its peak. Tier two and tier three cities in India are worse though, there are no records on them and nothing to make people aware of it.” (Shibayan Raha)

“The air pollution in Delhi is actually pretty scary. I really haven’t ever experienced anything quite like it. There are days where I just have to stay inside because if I go out, I know the next day I’ll be struggling with sinus issues and laboured breathing. I have had a chronic cough since I have been here.

“Many people here, from young kids to athletic adults, to elders, all have this chronic congestive cough. We call it the Delhi chest, or the Delhi cough. Little kids with chronic respiratory illnesses are the norm here, not the rarity. And still they burn trash, run vehicles on diesel.

“I grew up in Los Angeles, and we had summer inversion layers that were probably the start of the reasoning for things like the Clean Air Act and the EPA. But the intensity of the physical symptoms I have here I have never experienced anywhere before.” (Nancy)

Guardian Cities is dedicating a week to investigating one of the worst preventable causes of death around the world: air pollution. Explore our coverage at The Air We Breathe and follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion

"You can taste it in the air": your stories of life in polluted cities

What I wish I could tell my boss: "You never defend me"

You never stick up for your junior members of staff. When another healthcare worker said recently: “I don’t see the point of pharmacists on the ward”, instead of defending us, you brought the complaint to us and lectured us about how we do our jobs. This is the role that you – a senior managing pharmacist – created, and recruited us for. So why don’t you defend us?

And I don’t just hear this from colleagues. Patients routinely tell me: “Oh you wouldn’t know what that tablet is for” and speak to me like I am an uneducated, inexperienced member of staff – oblivious to the fact I have a four-year degree. While others tell me they “don’t understand my job”.

People often assume that the pharmacist is simply there to pick the tablets off the shelf, count them out and hand them over. I get asked by patients’ relatives: “Why does it take three hours just to get the medications up?” I have to defend the job that I do on a daily basis, explaining that I have to make sure the medications are safe before I simply hand them over.

I wouldn’t expect the public to know exactly what a pharmacist does, but now it seems the healthcare colleagues I work with don’t understand the concept of my job either. I am left feeling unappreciated by everyone around me. Our senior pharmacists, managers and leaders do nothing to defend our positions or highlight the importance of our roles.

I continue to do what I do without recognition. Patients are often none-the-wiser about the corrections I’ve made to their prescribed medications. On a daily basis I find myself having to tell junior doctors how they have prescribed essential medicines incorrectly: Parkinson’s medications, cancer treatments, anti-hypertensives, anti-epileptics and anti-diabetics. The prescriptions quietly get changed without the patient or other healthcare professionals knowing.

A doctor prescribes a double dose of a toxic drug – I see the prescription and instantly instruct the doctor to amend it so that the patient is not given a potentially dangerous dose. A doctor documents a plan to start phosphate supplements yet accidentally prescribes potassium supplements – I tell them to change the prescription to avoid potential heart problems. In both instances the patient is unaware. When junior doctors went on strike, we were left with consultants who didn’t know how to use electronic prescribing systems. On whom did they rely? You guessed it: us. It would be nice if, instead of agreeing with colleagues who say they don’t understand my role, you explained to them the importance of what we do.

From a distance it might seem that I am doing nothing, sitting at the corner of the ward behind a screen staring at drug charts, prescriptions and blood results. But if it was not for me checking and cleaning up the mess of inaccurate prescribing by doctors who are too busy and tired to pay attention, then patients would not be treated safely. They would be given the wrong medication in hospitals, with potentially fatal consequences, and they would go home with the wrong prescriptions.

So next time someone questions the importance of our jobs and makes a demeaning remark asking what is the point of us “sitting around on the wards all day”, it would be nice if you stood up and highlighted just how essential our jobs are. I do not expect understanding, praise or recognition from patients and the public, but I do expect appreciation and respect from the other healthcare professionals that I work with – and even more so from you.

What I wish I could tell my boss: "You never defend me"

Mother Nature vs. Patented Drugs—one of these was never meant to cure you. Do you know the difference?

It may surprise you to know, the medical diagnosis and drugs you take for it, have only been around for about one hundred years. Prior to the rise of Western Medicine as the standard of care, and patented drugs as their treatment—for millennia-since the beginning of time—Mother Nature reigned supreme. After all, none of us would be alive if our ancestors died on the way to the drugstore.

It may also surprise you to learn that all laboratory-created patented drugs were originally taken from nature. In nature there is balance and order. Plants are living beings that have their own innate intelligence that can restore the human body to balance as well. This intelligence is why a plant can either enhance or diminish a certain condition as needed; as opposed to a laboratory created drug—which has no intelligence, and simply substitutes a pill for a function, until that function is suppressed.

Penicillin was created quite by surprise when Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, returned from a holiday in 1928, to find a discarded petri dish containing colonies of Staphylococcus bacteria had grown mold while he was away. The area around the mold—later identified as a rare strain of Penicillium notatum—was clear, as if the mold had secreted something that inhibited bacterial growth. Fleming was credited with the discovery of the first antibiotic—a group of compounds capable of inhibiting and killing competing microbial species. This was hailed as the greatest discovery of our time. However, this phenomenon was known long before by ancient Egyptians—who applied poultices of moldy bread to infected wounds.

Antibiotics are naturally occurring compounds produced by bacteria and fungi. Good bacteria balances bad bacteria. Good yeast balances bad yeast. Western Medicine, by simply killing the bad bacteria—upsets the natural balance or order of things by not replenishing the good. With bacteria—it’s always a matter of numbers to keep things in balance. E Coli, for example, can be present in water, but isn’t a problem until the bacteria numbers reach a certain ppm, or parts per million. Simply killing the bacteria does not cause balance—because bacteria are intelligent, opportunistic living organisms and nature abhors a vacuum. Sooner or later, those bacteria that survive will colonize again, unless you seed the body with their competing and balancing good bacteria. Imagine the conversation between those antibiotic surviving superbugs colonizing in your small intestine:

“Dude—you’re a savage —nobody survives that many rounds of streptomycin.”

This is why antibiotics are becoming increasingly less effective. Bacteria and Fungi have the same innate intelligence that most humans do. When you denature them, you rearrange their molecular structure. This is why patented drugs, created in a laboratory, do not bring the condition into balance. Patented drugs are about creating customers who rely on these drugs to function. And because they are not natural molecules that your liver can break down into natural elements for healing—they simply add to the toxic load on your liver. This causes side effects. Which leads to more drugs to combat the side effects– which are sometimes worse than the simple solution to the original problem. All disease is a matter of balance—too little nutrients and too many toxins.

All of us have lost our connection to nature, to our origins, to the earth and plants and soil and organisms that came before us. Ron Finley said it best:
“No one’s a more prolific gangster artist than Mother Nature. We should replicate what she does. Yes it’s art. It’s knowing where life comes from. It’s knowing that nothing ever dies, ever. Nothing dies—it’s the energy transfer.”

Resources:

https://thetruthaboutcancer.com/
http://ronfinley.com/

Mother Nature vs. Patented Drugs—one of these was never meant to cure you. Do you know the difference?

"You see tough things as a police officer. I felt sick as memories flooded back"

When people used to ask me, a serving police officer, how I was feeling, “OK” became an easy phrase to use. It didn’t show how much I was hiding.

I have worked for Essex police for more than 30 years. After 20 years of service, in 2013 my mental health started to decline. There were no big warning signs, no alarms, no sirens, just the start of a really difficult period of my life.

As a police officer, you see tough things. I started to have flashbacks to certain incidents I had encountered. I would feel sick as some memories flooded back. At other times I would feel an overwhelming sense of despair, feeling that life was just not worth it.

Alan Phillips: ‘There were no big warning signs’

In January 2014 I started to drink, a little too much most days. My behaviour at work became more erratic and on several occasions I was spoken to by supervisors. I wanted to tell them how I felt but I couldn’t find the words. I gave little clues but these were not picked up on. When anyone asked me if anything was wrong, I’d always respond that I was OK.

Mentally, I crashed in April 2014. I spent a week-and-a-half unable to move, not washing, shaving or dressing, just staying in bed. I finally saw a doctor. I’d been off work nearly a week and my wife encouraged me to go.

This wasn’t the end of the problems – I still live with stress, depression and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. But at the moment, I’m managing; I’m working. I’m open about my mental health now and that has changed a lot. Being in the police force can mean you encounter some difficult things. This condition is not because we are weak; thoughts of suicide are not a sign that you are a coward. This condition is one suffered by the strong.

I have been involved with Mind’s Blue Light programme from the beginning. Mind’s research shows that nearly two-thirds (63%) of emergency service staff and volunteers have contemplated leaving their job or voluntary role because of stress or poor mental health.

The Blue Light infoline offers vital support to people in the emergency services who may be experiencing similar feelings to the ones I had. It serves an important purpose. If you have any worries at all about your mental health while working in the emergency services and are afraid to tell someone, this service can offer a confidential ear and tailor support to the field you work in.

Once you speak, people will listen, but you have to tell them.

Alan Phillips is a detective constable in Essex police. Mind has just run a Blue Light Infoline awareness week.

For more news, opinions and ideas about the voluntary sector, join our community – it’s free!

"You see tough things as a police officer. I felt sick as memories flooded back"

"You can"t just walk away on a plane": passengers on drinking at airports

Jack Rice, 19, is at Manchester airport with a group of friends waiting to go on his first “lads’ holiday” to the Spanish party resort of Magaluf, on Mallorca. The group have arrived four hours early for their flight and after they go through security, they plan to sit down and have a few beers before getting on the plane.

“I’m not going to drink loads, just have a few,” he says. “We want to have a drink before we get over because it’s the start of our holiday. I’m not a big drinker, but I’m going to have a drink, because we don’t get there until later and I don’t want to be stone cold sober.”

Related: Banning alcohol in airports is the worst idea I’ve ever heard | Luke Holland

On Friday, the aviation minister, Tariq Ahmad, who was appointed by Theresa May this month, announced a review of the sale of alcohol at airports after a series of incidents involving drunk passengers.

Bars and restaurants in airports are not subject to normal licensing restrictions and can sell alcohol 24 hours a day. Although Lord Ahmad said he did not want to “kill merriment altogether”, the review will look at the times alcohol is on sale and the possibility of screening passengers before they get on their flights.

Like many other British tourists waiting to board flights to sunnier climes from Manchester, Rice does not object to the idea that there should be a limit to the amount you can drink at an airport. “If you’re too drunk, you obviously shouldn’t be allowed on a plane,” he says.

Mike Berridge, 39, is waiting with his wife, Karen, and their daughter to fly to İçmeler, Turkey. “Last year we sat just in front of an idiot who was far too drunk [and using bad language], and I don’t think it’s acceptable, especially when you’re travelling with children,” he says. “It really spoiled the journey.”

A freedom of information request by the Press Association revealed that at least 442 people were arrested in the two years to March 2016 on suspicion of being intoxicated on a plane or at an airport. Several airlines have raised concerns with the government about the number of alcohol-related incidents on flights.

In May, police were called to Manchester airport when a female passenger allegedly punched an easyJet pilot in the face after being ordered to leave a plane bound for Cyprus. In February, six British men on a stag party were arrested by German police following a mid-air brawl that caused a Ryanair flight from Luton to Bratislava to be diverted to Berlin.

Louise Mowthorpe, 46, is on her way to San Javier, Spain, with her partner, Chris Knaggs, and 10-year-old daughter. She is in favour of trying to limit people’s drinking at airports, but thinks it will be difficult to police. “Some people use drink for medicinal purposes, or when they’re stressed, they have a drink. And some people can manage alcohol better than other people,” Mowthorpe says.

Related: Should we crack down on alcohol sale and consumption at UK airports?

Knaggs says drinking in an airport is very different to drinking in a bar. “You’ve got a responsibility to other people’s safety on a plane. In a bar, you can just walk away from people, but [a plane is] a confined space and people are supposed to be able to operate doors … You don’t want to be sitting next to someone who’s been drinking and can’t function properly if they evacuate the plane,” he says.

A code of practice on disruptive passengers was published this week after talks between airlines, the police and bodies including the British Air Transport Association and the Airport Operators Association.

The code instructs airport shops to advise passengers not to drink alcohol they have purchased before or during their flight, and calls for the training of restaurant and bar staff to limit or stop serving alcohol in order to prevent or manage disruptive behaviour.

"You can"t just walk away on a plane": passengers on drinking at airports

"You can"t just walk away on a plane": passengers on drinking at airports

Jack Rice, 19, is at Manchester airport with a group of friends waiting to go on his first “lads’ holiday” to the Spanish party resort of Magaluf, on Mallorca. The group have arrived four hours early for their flight and after they go through security, they plan to sit down and have a few beers before getting on the plane.

“I’m not going to drink loads, just have a few,” he says. “We want to have a drink before we get over because it’s the start of our holiday. I’m not a big drinker, but I’m going to have a drink, because we don’t get there until later and I don’t want to be stone cold sober.”

Related: Banning alcohol in airports is the worst idea I’ve ever heard | Luke Holland

On Friday, the aviation minister, Tariq Ahmad, who was appointed by Theresa May this month, announced a review of the sale of alcohol at airports after a series of incidents involving drunk passengers.

Bars and restaurants in airports are not subject to normal licensing restrictions and can sell alcohol 24 hours a day. Although Lord Ahmad said he did not want to “kill merriment altogether”, the review will look at the times alcohol is on sale and the possibility of screening passengers before they get on their flights.

Like many other British tourists waiting to board flights to sunnier climes from Manchester, Rice does not object to the idea that there should be a limit to the amount you can drink at an airport. “If you’re too drunk, you obviously shouldn’t be allowed on a plane,” he says.

Mike Berridge, 39, is waiting with his wife, Karen, and their daughter to fly to İçmeler, Turkey. “Last year we sat just in front of an idiot who was far too drunk [and using bad language], and I don’t think it’s acceptable, especially when you’re travelling with children,” he says. “It really spoiled the journey.”

A freedom of information request by the Press Association revealed that at least 442 people were arrested in the two years to March 2016 on suspicion of being intoxicated on a plane or at an airport. Several airlines have raised concerns with the government about the number of alcohol-related incidents on flights.

In May, police were called to Manchester airport when a female passenger allegedly punched an easyJet pilot in the face after being ordered to leave a plane bound for Cyprus. In February, six British men on a stag party were arrested by German police following a mid-air brawl that caused a Ryanair flight from Luton to Bratislava to be diverted to Berlin.

Louise Mowthorpe, 46, is on her way to San Javier, Spain, with her partner, Chris Knaggs, and 10-year-old daughter. She is in favour of trying to limit people’s drinking at airports, but thinks it will be difficult to police. “Some people use drink for medicinal purposes, or when they’re stressed, they have a drink. And some people can manage alcohol better than other people,” Mowthorpe says.

Related: Should we crack down on alcohol sale and consumption at UK airports?

Knaggs says drinking in an airport is very different to drinking in a bar. “You’ve got a responsibility to other people’s safety on a plane. In a bar, you can just walk away from people, but [a plane is] a confined space and people are supposed to be able to operate doors … You don’t want to be sitting next to someone who’s been drinking and can’t function properly if they evacuate the plane,” he says.

A code of practice on disruptive passengers was published this week after talks between airlines, the police and bodies including the British Air Transport Association and the Airport Operators Association.

The code instructs airport shops to advise passengers not to drink alcohol they have purchased before or during their flight, and calls for the training of restaurant and bar staff to limit or stop serving alcohol in order to prevent or manage disruptive behaviour.

"You can"t just walk away on a plane": passengers on drinking at airports

"Being a ideal lady can destroy you" extract from Unspeakable Factors by Laurie Penny

Aged 17, I am some thing of an anomaly when I arrive on an eating problems ward. Near-cropped hair, black garments, soaked in hair dye and riot grrrl rock, dressed as a boy, naturally queer. It is only later that I will find out that among a quarter and a half of younger individuals hospitalised with eating problems are gay, trans or genderqueer. That’s a single of the issues they don’t tell you about how and why younger ladies fall apart.

The youthful women currently there look like broken dress-up dolls, all of us poured from the exact same weird, emaciated mould, barely capable to stand upright, the identical minimize marks scored like barcodes in the secret spots on our skin. Plainly, the other girls have starved themselves to the level of collapse basically due to the fact they want to look fairly I, meanwhile, have flawlessly rational, intellectual causes for undertaking specifically the same. We will by no means be close friends. We have nothing in typical.

This level of see lasts virtually specifically 18 hrs, right up until the first scheduled late-evening feeding time, when we all huddle collectively on inexpensive hospital sofas making an attempt to push two puny biscuits into our faces, feeling boiled in our skin. A single girl, who is ten years older than me and has her personal story, shunts shut and puts a bony arm around my shoulders. “It really is all correct,” she tells me. “You can do it.”

I enable myself to be held. I pick up the biscuit. And one thing changes.

Over the weeks and months of confinement, these women will turn into my best pals. I will discover at 17 what it will take some folks decades to accept: that pretty girls who play to patriarchy and ugly girls who never ever got asked to a college dance endure just the very same. That the identical trick is becoming played on all of us. There is no way to play the perfect-girl game and win.

The cruellest lie they had been told was: “It really is what is on the inside that counts.” It is not what is on the within that counts. Perfect girls will not get a day off. Excellent girls don’t sit on the sofa eating biscuits, even when their very favourite demonstrate is on. Ideal ladies are often working when they are not at college or on the clock they are operating out, and when they aren’t working out they are volunteering, shopping or operating a social daily life like a frantic startup. Be a excellent girl. Smile and make folks really feel comfortable accept minimal shell out, long hrs, the occasional grope in the corridor, compete with the other younger ladies to be the prettiest and most compliant, or the hardest-functioning, or the woman everyone loves. Just do not ever aspire to be a lot more than that.

Being That Lady is effortless if you happen to be white and averagely fairly. There is no trick to it. You never even have to entirely excise the elements of your character that will not fit, the parts that are sensible and challenging and loud and angry and ambitious and masculine and mature. You just dial these parts down until they turn out to be background noise dial them down and down until the male ear cannot pick up their frequency and rather quickly you can not even hear them inside your personal head. Tune them out and swallow them down like the scorching meals you never consume any a lot more due to the fact That Lady must stay slim and fragile if she needs to be gorgeous and loved. And you do want to be stunning and loved.

Eating ailments are less complicated to conceal than most psychological illnesses, particularly in a visual culture where we have got employed to pictures of extremely undernourished younger people. People that do not necessarily lead to severe fat reduction, this kind of as bulimia nervosa and compulsive overeating disorder, are easier still to hold secret – for a although. All these illnesses take a frightening toll on the brain and body, both in the long and brief phrase, as sufferers turn to all types of unsafe and grotesque approaches to manage their weight, from bloodletting, drug abuse and frantic overexercise to vomiting until finally the sufferer’s cheeks swell and teeth rot from spewing stomach acid.

It really is not rather. It really is the ugly little secret behind significantly modern elegance culture, and the largest secret is that it is no secret at all. None of it is. Diagnosis of consuming ailments, continual self-harm and other, more arcane types of self-damage has mushroomed above the previous decade, especially amid women, young queers, anyone who is below extra stress to fit in.

Of all the female sins, hunger is the least forgivable hunger for anything at all, for foods, sex, power, training, even really like. If we have wishes, we are expected to conceal them, to manage them, to hold ourselves in check out. We are supposed to be objects of wish, not desiring beings. We do not need to have meals: in several techniques, we are meals, trainable meat, lambs queueing up to get mint sauce. We consume only what we are informed to, from lipstick to daily life insurance, and only what will make us much more consumable ourselves, the far better to be chewed up and swallowed by a machine that would like our function, our income, our sexuality broken down into bite-sized chunks.

Males expertise physique policing also, of course, and there are real penalties for becoming overweight. The penalties, nevertheless, have a tendency to be significantly less existential one particular can even now, outdoors a really modest assortment of professions, expect to be judged as a man first and as a entire body second.

It is exciting that “ugly” is nevertheless the insult most commonly thrown at girls to dismiss their power, to get them to shut up. Female politicians are referred to as ugly and unfuckable by men who can not quite carry themselves to say immediately that they don’t deserve their energy, that their main objective as girls should be to please and arouse the opposite sex. “Body fat” is even much more clear. You happen to be gross, you consider up also considerably space, get out of my sight.

‘We’ve acquired utilized to images of incredibly undernourished youthful folks.’ Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images

The most recent correct-on theories about consuming disorders posit them as a technique that youthful ladies use to escape the stresses of present day femininity. Anorexia nervosa, the logic goes, suspends the traumatic method of turning out to be a girl, since when you stop consuming, when you lower down from 600 to 400 to 200 calories a day, your intervals quit, your tits and hips and wobbly bits disappear, and you return to an artificial prepubescent state, comprehensive with mood swings, weird musical obsessions and the overpowering impulse to shoplift scrunchies from Woolworths. The purpose younger women and rising numbers of young men behave like this, the logic goes, is simply because they’re frightened and angry about the gender roles they are becoming forced into. The notion that they may well have damn good factors for getting frightened and angry has not but occurred to the psychiatric profession.

The more powerful girls turn out to be, the a lot more we are taught that our bodies are unacceptable. A lot of of the most influential girls in the world, from pop stars to media tycoons, have faced public battles with their fat that the tabloid press is only as well content to catalogue and exaggerate. Other individuals, particularly politicians, have faced well-liked ridicule for the apparently scandalous surfeit of flesh on their flawlessly normal-sized bellies and bottoms.

A report published in a current situation of the Journal of Utilized Psychology exposed that the pay out and influence of test groups of women in the US and Germany consistently rose as their excess weight dropped under the healthier typical. By contrast, bodyweight achieve was an indicator of financial success for males up to the point of intense obesity, when men also get started to shell out a skilled penalty.

Causality is always challenging to create. Even with a study as rigorous as this, it is extremely hard to say conclusively regardless of whether the ladies misplaced bodyweight simply because their salaries rose, or regardless of whether their salaries rose due to the fact they lost excess weight. One thing’s for specified, even though: in Europe and the US, worry of female flesh is worry of female electrical power, and western society’s stage-managed loathing for women’s normal-sized bodies is deeply political.

That is practically nothing, however, when in contrast with the utter horror society reserves for greater women who are also bad. In western nations, exactly where quantity of meals access is not as problematic as top quality, getting obese is as most likely to be a symptom of poverty and malnutrition. This reality has only cemented the barely concealed disgust of the cultural right for doing work-class girls who consider up as well a lot room.

From boardrooms to the streets, women’s anxiety to preserve our physique mass as lower as attainable is based mostly on genuine fears that we will be punished if we try totally to enter patriarchal room. No wonder so several of us are starving.

Society understands that youthful girls are fucked up. Which is element of their charm. Not only are they objects, they are abject, terminally unable to cope with the exigencies of grownup existence, of the bewildering array of lifestyle alternatives modern society gives us, from vaginal butchery to jobs in the service sector.

Western womankind is collectively imagined as a toddler let loose in a candy shop, so overwhelmed by the assortment of choices that it has an ungrateful tantrum and is sick on the floor. And fucked-up youthful girls develop up to be miserable ladies: examine after vaunted study tells us that women and women are as miserable as they have ever been, overworked, exhausted, taking prescription medicine in 3 instances the numbers of guys.

The front pages of celebrity magazines shriek out a chorus of profitable girls on the verge of mental and physical collapse: this star is starving herself, this a single is depressed, this one particular consuming herself into a nightly stupor right up until her young children are confiscated. It is a myth that pleases the potent. Females have all this equality and chance now, but we can’t take care of it. Perhaps we weren’t meant to have it in the first location.

Best women know that they must continuously enhance. Of course, no one is really a perfect woman.

You attain a point exactly where you have to make a decision what you will sacrifice to survive. It was many years in the past now, and ample has happened to me considering that that I have forgotten when it was that I made a decision to give residing a shot, just as an experiment, to see if I could. Possibly it was shuffling to the small medical kitchen to consume toast, for the first time, with no fighting. I just keep in mind the crisp, buttery bread, and the concern that if I let my hunger loose I would never ever quit eating, I’d consume and eat till I was the dimension of a monster truck and preserve eating until I’d swallowed the globe. A younger girl’s hunger is a fearful point.

Or perhaps it was months later, leaving hospital for the first time in a new dress and lipstick I’d put on to persuade the ward nurse that I was last but not least healthier, ready to live a healthier daily life, painting on an expression the way females understand to do when we have to persuade the globe we’re pleased. Waving goodbye to the close friends I’d created there from the window of a taxi taking me hell knows in which, only that I would not be going house ever once more.

Being a great girl, a excellent lady, can destroy you rapidly or it can destroy you slow, flattening every thing precious inside you, the ideal dreams of your a single lifestyle, into drab homogeneity. At 17 I determined to make a stab at a distinct variety of lifestyle, and it was scary, and too significantly, and it nonetheless is, but so is staying at house with a painted-on smile. I see women producing that choice every single day, in their teens and 20s and 60s and 70s, and in this brave new planet in which empowerment means costly sneakers and the selection to bend in excess of for your boss, it is the only decision that truly matters.

These who make it get referred to as selfish bitches, freaks and sluts and cunts and whores, and at times we get called rebels and degenerates and troublemakers, and at times we are recognized to the police. And occasionally, in the narrow hrs of the night, we get in touch with ourselves feminists.

• Unspeakable Items by Laurie Penny is out on 3 July (Bloomsbury, £12.99). To buy a copy for £9.99 with free United kingdom p&ampp, go to theguardian.com/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.

"Being a ideal lady can destroy you" extract from Unspeakable Factors by Laurie Penny

Jeffrey Archer: "You turn out to be a infant again" following battling cancer

Mr Archer, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, extra for a week soon after the operation, which was completed last year, he “became a baby again”.

Explaining in detail the “extremely painful” actuality of residing with a catheter, he said: “The subsequent seven days were the worst.

“This is the period when the tube [which is inserted into a patient’s penis] and bag remain in spot, and have to be drained each and every two to 3 hours.

“During the week, you really don’t really feel like consuming but you have to drink tons of water, which only helps to fill up the bag and adds to your discomfort.”

He continued: “You turn out to be a baby again and [later] require to wear a large nappy to make positive that if you cannot get to the loo in time you will not water the carpet and almost everything else on the way.

“And just like a youngster, you have to understand to management by yourself.”

The graphic account comes almost three years soon after his wife, Mary, provided a similarly total account of her battle with bladder cancer.

Speaking about her very own surgical procedure then, the 69-12 months-old explained: “It is a highly sophisticated plumbing job. I had to wait for the joins to heal and they then examined it for leaks.

“It is a formidable operation for the surgeon, allow alone the patient.”

Her husband concluded his account of his 6 week recovery from the operation by advising any man more than the age of 50 to undergo a prostate examination.

He extra: “I have joined Men United and am proud to support Prostate Cancer United kingdom, because if I die ahead of the age of 88, the diagnosis won’t be prostate cancer.”

Jeffrey Archer: "You turn out to be a infant again" following battling cancer

Jeffrey Archer: "You grow to be a little one again" following cancer battle

Mr Archer, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative get together, extra for a week following the operation, which was finished final 12 months, he “became a child again”.

Explaining in detail the “extremely painful” reality of living with a catheter, he mentioned: “The subsequent 7 days had been the worst.

“This is the period when the tube [which is inserted into a patient’s penis] and bag continue to be in location, and have to be drained every two to 3 hrs.

“During the week, you do not come to feel like consuming but you have to drink lots of water, which only aids to fill up the bag and adds to your discomfort.”

He continued: “You turn out to be a child once again and [later] require to put on a big nappy to make certain that if you cannot get to the loo in time you will not water the carpet and every little thing else on the way.

“And just like a youngster, you have to learn to handle by yourself.”

The graphic account comes almost three years following his wife, Mary, offered a similarly full account of her battle with bladder cancer.

Speaking about her personal surgical treatment then, the 69-12 months-outdated stated: “It is a very sophisticated plumbing occupation. I had to wait for the joins to heal and they then tested it for leaks.

“It is a formidable operation for the surgeon, let alone the patient.”

Her husband concluded his account of his 6 week recovery from the operation by advising any man over the age of 50 to undergo a prostate examination.

He extra: “I have joined Men United and am proud to help Prostate Cancer United kingdom, due to the fact if I die just before the age of 88, the diagnosis will not be prostate cancer.”

Jeffrey Archer: "You grow to be a little one again" following cancer battle

Melinda Gates: "You have to let your heart break"

When she addressed the Globe Overall health Assembly in Geneva this week, she urged international action on the largely preventable fate of these 5.5 million newborn infants who die every single 12 months with out leaving any trace that they ever lived. Even though her wider focuses are the irreducibles of lifestyle and death, her techniques – vaccines, mosquito nets and contraception – are the armoury of a steely businesswomen.

We meet for the duration of her flying visit to see the growth secretary, Justine Greening, and to collect the honorary award of Dame of the British Empire, bestowed on her earlier this 12 months in recognition of her work for philanthropy and worldwide development. As ever, she is total of praise for Britain and its givers. “I’d enjoy to see your Red Nose day go on around the globe. You are a really generous country,” she says, also pointing to the six million children’s lives saved by the International Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) to which the Uk is one particular of the biggest donors.

Where some could settle for pious hopes, Melinda Gates would like information. Unlike her husband, she does not declare herself proud to be a geek, but nor does she disassociate herself from that label. “A good deal of my buddies would say that I’m kind of a datahead also.”

On the calculus of human lifestyle, newborn babies – her emphasis this week – fare specifically badly. Analysis just published in the health-related journal The Lancet displays that the toll of 15,000 babies who are born and die each and every day without having even receiving a piece of paper, let alone any memorial, is largely preventable. Provided the attrition, why has the target come so late?

“The fantastic news in child mortality is that the amount has come down substantially. Twenty million utilized to die each single yr, which is a tragedy. We’ve got that amount of children under 5 down to 6.six million dying a yr – still far too numerous but an unbelievable charge of progress.” On newborns, enhancements have been much slower. Deaths of newly-born babies now account for 44% of all beneath 5 kid deaths.

Mrs Gates can make the situation for inexpensive and straightforward indicates to keep away from so numerous deaths. “Teaching a female to preserve her child warm and instant breast feeding are not quite pricey. But if we as a planet focus on [measures like] that, we will cut in half however again people 6.six million children who are dying.”

Charities this kind of as Save the Kids have emphasised a lot more expensive interventions, too – in particular, a lot of more midwives. “In Ethiopia and Rwanda they have got local community health workers, who are primarily midwives, out in the neighborhood. That qualified assistant can save a women’s lifestyle and – by carrying out some fundamental factors – conserve the newborn’s lifestyle. Other countries in Africa are commencing to replicate that model.”

There was little in Melinda Gates’s personal early existence to recommend what her vocation would be. Born in Dallas in 1964, a couple of months right after John F Kennedy was shot, Melinda Ann French was the daughter of an engineer who set up a rental enterprise to put his 4 children through school. “We worked on the properties. I mowed lawns, I scrubbed ovens, and I cleaned homes right after individuals left.”

She also kept the company books on a rudimentary property Pc before moving on to a pc science degree and then joining Microsoft, in which she met the company founder, Bill Gates, by likelihood at a conference dinner. “There have been only two chairs left. I took one and, and 20 minutes later on, an individual else who was even later on took the final one particular next to me. That was Bill.”

To celebrate their engagement, they organised a lavish African safari for a group of friends. Unbeguiled by the luxury and wildlife, the Gateses came property preoccupied instead by the memory of girls weighed down by firewood and young children. Shortly after their marriage, she left her higher-flying occupation to increase her 3 young children and set up the basis that has grow to be a template for other billionaire philanthropists. Along with Warren Buffett, the Gateses have so far inspired, or persuaded, much more than 120 fellow wealthy-listers to pledge at least half their fortunes to charity.

^{Bill and Melinda Gates in India’s Bihar’s state on March 23, 2011 (HO/AFP/Getty Photographs)}

In which a lot of titans of business leave their cash to their heirs, the Gateses plan rather to bequeath their sense of duty, along with only a small fraction of a fortune destined largely for charitable ends. “We speak about the problems we see in the developing planet at the dinner table with the little ones. They’re quite properly-informed. Possibly we speak a little bit also significantly about tuberculosis or HIV/Aids. Other households may be a little bored, but we’re passing our values on to our youngsters.”

As properly as visiting developing countries in school holidays, the Gates kids – two teenage daughters and a son – “all have chores around the home. You bet. And they also each and every work in a local charity in Seattle. They’ve picked ones shut to their heart, and they do hands-on work there anonymously. They’re learning to volunteer and give back.

“We have an agreement inside of the family members about how a lot income they will each get, and we believe our kids should go off and have their own careers and their personal lives.” Although the foundation will be wound up following the death of the last surviving partner, she anticipates no allow-up in their work for decades to come. “These are our most energetic many years, so we want to get on. We’ll nonetheless be concerned in vaccine perform in ten many years, and we’re hunting twenty many years ahead at maternal and kid mortality.”

For all the progress she can cite, sections of the West remain sceptical about the use of assist. The potency of this argument might be illustrated by the fact that she and Bill chose to use their most recent yearly newsletter to try and debunk some myths surrounding help for example, suspicion that conserving more children’s lives will boost the global population to unsustainable levels.

From the time of Thomas Malthus, who published his famous essay on the topic in 1798, theorists have worried about a doomsday situation in which food supply can no longer sustain an in excess of-crowded planet.

As Melinda writes in the newsletter: “Letting children die now so that they don’t starve later does not work. It may possibly be counter-intuitive, but the countries with the most deaths have amid the quickest-growing populations in the globe.” When there is no ensure that a youngster will live, and every possibility that it will die, mothers tend to have a lot more and more children.

In Afghanistan, exactly where little one mortality is very substantial, ladies have an average of 6.2 children. Despite the fact that one particular in ten kids will die, the country’s population is projected to develop from 30 million these days to 55 million by 2050. In Thailand, by contrast, ladies went from possessing six young children to two in excess of the course of two decades as the consequence of a government-sponsored household planning programme. Nowadays, little one mortality in Thailand is roughly the same as the US – and the regular Thai mom has one.6 babies.

As a devout Catholic, Melinda Gates struggled before selling contraception. “Absolutely. But women’s stories would ring in my head. They would say: ‘I cannot have an additional child. I previously have 4, and I can barely feed them.’ It grew to become a rallying cry to me to response those women’s phone. So yes, I wrestled with my faith but I’m a Catholic, and I use contraceptives, and I consider it’s the proper thing for women all more than the world.”

Will the Pope, to whom she has thrown down a gauntlet, adopt her message? “I feel the Pope will consider the selections he thinks are proper for the church. I do not believe he’ll automatically adhere to my messages, but I believe he cares about the poor. If he’s out speaking with households, he will hear – I hope – the genuine needs on the ground.”

When I ask once more if Pope Francis is persuadable, she says: “Religious institutions come all around to things more than time. This is a moral determination that the Catholic church feels it demands to make, so I am hopeful, but we will see.” Of abortion – nonetheless hugely controversial in the US – she says: “People have distinct opinions about abortion for a very excellent cause. The debate even now requirements to occur in my country. If we can get girls contraceptives, you will not get them into the predicament where they require to have an abortion. I’ve never met a lady in the planet who wished an abortion.

“African nations have to determine for themselves. Most nations we operate in do not let abortions.” The US, meanwhile, stays professional-option. “Would I repeal that law? No, I would not. The country has determined that females must be allowed to have [that option], so I surely wouldn’t turn it back.”

The operate they have undertaken, along with charity and government partners, has altered the globe. The Gateses’ funds, coupled with rigorous business practice, enables Bill to say that there will soon be no poor nations left, or Melinda to speak of a drop from 20 to six.6 million in the below-fives who die every 12 months.

But, while no one particular doubts the value of their achievements, some question no matter whether the rich must have such sway more than life and death. She counters that charge by citing “checks and balances [which] actually have to do with being transparent. Our basis is transparent. All our grants are on internet site, and there is transparency in [our] data. We feel very accountable.”

Other observers think that the wealthiest, whose fortunes are on the rise, could afford to contribute a fantastic deal more. Exactly where the Gateses do have British signatories to their giving pledge – Sir Richard Branson and Lord Ashcroft amid them – the culture of philanthropy is far far more embedded in the minimal-tax US than In Britain. When Bill Gates tries to drum up support from the super-rich in booming economies, this kind of as China, he stresses that alleviating poverty and unwell wellness pays financial dividends saying that, “the returns from investing in bad people are just as excellent as from investing in the enterprise planet – and have even much more which means.”

As Melinda suggests, there is nothing arbitrary about the Gates operation. Her watchwords – transparency, accountability and information – are the mantras of the boardroom, and the Gates model of entrepreneurial danger-taking, innovation and partnership is intended to match the company template of great practice. There is practically nothing, in other words, to frighten off an ardent capitalist in a system the place every single vaccine administered, mosquito net dispensed and life saved is logged and monitored.

^{Bill and Melinda Gates during their 2011 trip to Bihar state, India. (AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui)}

In a new departure, African girls are doing door-to-do surveys with cell phones and downloading the findings to a information bank that offers true-time info to the Gates Basis. Melinda Gates might be a amount-cruncher, but her most respected database is the lives of other women. “It’s very emotional. You meet ladies who ask you to get one particular of their children home with you. You know that little one would be better off, but you can’t.

“Before coming property, I always consider time to reflect. What did I get on emotionally? What may possibly inform our techniques?” As she re-enters lifestyle in the Gates mansion, ferried by private jet, she might also reflect on how the bleak existences she witnesses contrast with her own seemingly charmed daily life.

Her marriage, for instance, would seem a model of perfection, in which she and Bill are so ideally suited that they even have matching his ‘n’ hers honorary degrees from Cambridge University, a recipient of the Gates largesse. She is eager to dismiss any notions of undented harmony.

“There’s no such factor as excellent, and I really don’t consider we must perpetuate that myth. There’s a good deal of [speak ]in the US about ladies being ideal as properly as this myth of the best couple. It is not reasonable, and girls and women shouldn’t expand up below that pressure. I have close friends and siblings who are in amazing marriages, but they are nothing at all like mine.

“I don’t consider there’s any perfect marriage, but we do have a especially sturdy one particular. We’re fortunate to have located a passion and to share what we understand and where our hearts are.” So do they fall out? “Oh, certain. Each and every couple has issues that irritate the other a single.” This kind of as? “I’ll inform you what Bill’s irritant is about me. He does not like the way that I chew ice cubes.”

For the initial years they were collectively, she clung to her anonymity far a lot more jealously than to her income. “Then I decided that, if I could give voice to some of the females who talked to me, it was worth giving up some privacy, even though I am a very personal man or woman. But there are nonetheless areas in Seattle where I can walk into a sandwich shop and most men and women have no thought who I am. I have a pony tail and my yoga pants on and a stack of papers to study.”

People paperwork detail other people’s tragedy. Numerous occasions, she has been diminished to tears by an encounter with yet another distraught mom carrying an additional dying child. She might possess the aura, retinue and safety detail befitting a monarch or a president, but this kind of trappings provide no safety against human grief.

“You have to let your heart break,” she says. “That is what enables me to get action.” In the disciplined crusade of Melinda Gates, not a penny of her fortune nor a single stranger’s cry of ache ever knowingly goes to waste.

Melinda Gates: "You have to let your heart break"

Midwife advised pregnant female "hurry up and have the child, I am going to minimize you"

‘Patient A was admitted to Airedale General Hospital on the 19 February and delivered her baby during the night shift of the early hrs of the twenty February.

‘The registrant was her allocated midwife.

‘It is said that the registrant was rude in her carry out, that she inappropriately asked Patient A to quit using ache relief and that she had the patient in the lithotomy position, which is when the mother’s legs are positioned in stirrups without having providing any proper explanation or acquiring any consent.

‘As a consequence of that complaint the matter was investigated by Ms Sarah Bennett – investigating supervisor of midwives.

‘Ms Bennett interviewed the registrant about the incident and the registrant denied that she had advised the patient to stop using her ache relief.

‘She did admit that on event she would occasionally say to mothers that she may well have to give them a tiny reduce in buy to motivate them to push more difficult.’

Matthews also claimed she had obtained proper consent just before putting the patient into the lithotomy place, the panel heard.

Following the complaint, she was placed on a supervised programme of practise at St James’ Hospital, Leeds, when it is explained she failed to demonstrate competence as a midwife.

On June six 2012, she failed to react when a patient who had recently given birth started hemorrhaging, the panel heard.

‘When that occurs it requires fast response to minimise the blood reduction to the mom,’ stated Mr Unwin.

‘The registrant showed no indication that she was concerned about the risk of blood loss.’

On a second supervised shift on 27 June of the exact same year, Matthews failed to make proper records for a young, initial time mother for two hours, it is stated.

She was suspended from the hospital and practise as a midwife following an interview on three July 2012.

Matthews faces a series of charges relating to alleged misconduct and lack of competence at the NMC tribunal in central London which she has chosen not to attend.

If the panel find the allegations towards the nurse proved, she could encounter a period of suspension or becoming struck off the register.

Matthews competent as a nurse in 1987 and later on qualified as a midwife in 2002.

The hearing continues.

Midwife advised pregnant female "hurry up and have the child, I am going to minimize you"