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Mohan is preparing for high temperatures at the Paris Olympics by spending up to an hour in saunas several times a week and turning off the fans while doing her indoor cycling training.
“Being an outdoor sport, whatever conditions you can think of, we have trained in them,” says Pritchard.
Organisers say they are taking a number of precautions to protect athletes from extreme heat. Outdoor endurance events such as the marathon and triathlon will start early, at 8am, when it is cooler, and athletes will have access to water stations and shaded areas at regular intervals, says Lambis Konstantinidis, executive director of planning and coordination at the Paris Olympics. The triathlon will be postponed if the temperature rises above 32.2C (90F), Konstantinidis says.
The AC question
In a bid to halve the carbon footprint of the Paris Olympics compared with previous games, air conditioning units have not been installed in the Olympic Village.
Instead, the village will be cooled by a geothermal system which pumps water from deep below the ground to keep indoor temperatures 6C (10.8F) lower than outside, according to the organising committee. More than 9,000 trees have also been planted in the Olympic and Paralympic villages to provide natural cooling. The “natural freshness” of the River Seine will also help cool the city centre, says Konstantinidis.
Whatever conditions you can think of, we have trained in them – Benjamin Pritchard
Some delegations, including the US, have said that they plan to bring their own air-conditioning units, for athletes’ rooms. “In our conversations with athletes, this was a very high priority and something that the athletes felt was a critical component in their performance capability,” Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the Olympic and Paralympic Committee leadership committee, said during a press briefing in June.
Healthy eating during pregnancy and the year after giving birth may be uncommon in the United States, suggests a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and other institutions. On a scale from “A” to “F,” study participants received a grade of “D” on a measure of healthy eating. However, eating habits remained stable during pregnancy and after, with scores changing little during the six times participants were questioned during the study. The authors concluded that their results suggest a need to improve diet quality during and after pregnancy.
The study was conducted by Leah Lipsky, Ph.D., of the NICHD Social and Behavioral Sciences Branch, and colleagues. It appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Background
Nutrition during and after pregnancy is important for the health of the parent and child. Research suggests that during and after pregnancy, most individuals consume too much fat and sugar and not enough fiber, vitamins, and minerals. However, few studies have assessed overall diet quality during and after pregnancy. Information on diet quality during and after pregnancy is needed to identify those at risk for inadequate nutrition and to develop interventions to help them.
Results
For the current study, researchers analyzed data from 383 participants in a previous study. During study visits, participants in a North Carolina health care system provided information on what they ate for the previous day during the first, second, and third trimesters of pregnancy and at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months after giving birth.
Researchers scored participant responses according to the Healthy Eating Index, a measure of how closely someone’s diet adheres to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Healthy Eating Index gauges consumption of healthy foods such as fruit, vegetables, greens, legumes, and whole grains, as well as foods that should be consumed in moderation, such as refined grains, sodium, added sugars, and saturated fats. Healthy Eating Index scores range from 0 to 100 and are expressed in a graded approach, with 90 to 100 equivalent to an A, 80 to 89 equivalent to a B, 70 to 79 a C, and 60 to 69 a D.
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The group’s average was 61.4 during pregnancy and 61.7 in the year after pregnancy—both low Ds. The highest scores were seen in participants with a college degree (64.7 in pregnancy and 66.4 post pregnancy) and among non-Hispanic whites (64.7 in pregnancy and 66.4 post pregnancy). Participants’ scores were consistent throughout the study, with only minor variations between visits.
Significance
The authors noted that low diet quality scores were present among all groups in the study, which reflects an urgent need for widespread improvement.
First the Baltics, now Taiwan. This month saw the latest in a spate of incidents in which crucial undersea cables connecting U.S. allies have been damaged or severed.
Some have been cast as acts of sabotage, pinning blame on Russia and China amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Early this month, Taiwan’s coast guard said it had intercepted the Xing Shun 39 — a Hong Kong-owned freighter carrying the Cameroonian and Tanzanian flags — after the Beijing-claimed island’s biggest telecom company, Chunghwa Telecom, alerted authorities that an international undersea cable had been damaged on Jan. 3.
A “preliminary assessment” suggested the damage might have been caused by the freighter, which “transited the area at the time of the incident,” the coast guard said.
With an average of about 200 cable faults a year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, damage to undersea communications infrastructure is not uncommon. The majority is caused by ship anchors or fishing activity such as trawling, where heavy equipment is dragged across the seafloor.
