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The national capital’s air pollu­tion is so bad we have come to firmly believe that it is, after New Delhi and Beijing, the most polluted city in the world. But according to a revised data­base of the WHO, which uses data from the Nepal Health Research Council, Kathmandu has actually fallen from the #108 most polluted city in the world in 2008 to #261 most polluted city in 2015. Never­theless, Kathmandu’s air pollution level is undeniably high, with our air quality nearly five times worse than the WHO recommended levels. Globally, air pollution causes nearly 5.5 million deaths every year, and not all of them are due to respi­ratory diseases. Eighty percent of air pollution deaths are due to isch­emic heart diseases and strokes, i.e. cardiovascular ailments. The other 20 percent are respiratory (COPD, ALRI, and lung cancer).

We have been hearing a lot about the harmful effect of pollution on grown-ups, but how does it affect children and infants who do not leave their homes for the most part?

According to paediatrician Dr Nikhil Agarwal of Vayodha Hospital, children are equally, if not more, at risk of contracting respiratory and communicable diseases. “In recent years,” he shares, “there has been a sharp increase in the number of children suffering from air pollu­tion-related illnesses, and it is get­ting harder to treat them.”

Since we live in a valley, the warm air that the pollutants would nor­mally escape with stays trapped and grows dense with time, says Hemu Kafle, a scientist at the Kathman­du Institute of Applied Sciences. “Because of this, the same air travels everywhere, and there is no place free of pollution,” she says. In other words, even if you live deep in a resi­dential area with plenty of greenery, you are still being exposed to a dan­gerous level of air pollution. Locking up your family is thus no solution.

What makes children more vulnerable is their already weak immune system. Compared to adults, kids, especially infants, have low tolerance for harmful bacteria and viruses. The pollut­ants (which are matters smaller than a strand of hair) first damage their already delicate immune sys­tem. Then they attack it, causing bronchitis, asthma, flu and common cold.

Due to their constant exposure to pollutants—the dust that you can see is the least of your prob­lems— treatment takes longer than it should, and they have to be pre­scribed stronger medicines. “Simple medicines that would have cured them in the past aren’t effective any­more,” says Dr Agarwal. Stronger and more frequent doses of antibi­otics and other medicines add to the children’s health woes.

There is no easy way out. Children, infants, and even the old suffer disproportionately from air pollution. What would actually help is robust implementation of emission regulations and environ­mental policies.

But that is a tall order. The Minis­try of Population and Environment has always had plans to tackle air pollution. Yet implementation has been painfully slow. For instance the government recently announced a complete ban on vehicles that are older than 20 years. But this policy recommendation, proposed by ‘His Majesty’s Government’, was sup­posed to be implemented by 2001.

“Microwaves are life savers,” says Laxmi Neupane, a young working woman. “I use micro­wave ovens almost daily. My hus­band and I are both busy. Micro­wave ovens give us the flexibility to prepare quick meals or to heat up the leftovers.” While there may be many fans of microwave ovens in urban cit­ies like Kathmandu, few seem to know the threat to health that they pose. They effectively poison your food.

To understand the ‘magic’ microwave ovens work on our food, we need to understand how a microwave oven actu­ally works. Microwaves, as the name suggests, cook food by injecting them with microwaves, a form of energy. Inside the guts of a microwave, a device called magnetron channels electrical energy from a power outlet to a heated filament, creating a flow of electrons that in turn transmits microwaves to the cooking cham­ber through an antenna.

Microwaves bounce around in the chamber and cook food by radiation heating—exciting molecules within an object—by becoming lodged in water, sugars, and fats.

The harm lies not in the device itself, but mainly in the plastic containers used to heat food. These containers contain two components that health experts are most concerned about: phthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA). The compounds are often referred to as endocrine disrup­tors because of their ability to affect estrogen and testosterone levels in humans.

They could also hamper with the development of the brain and reproductive organs in grow­ing foetuses.

Some may argue, ‘it’s the food we eat, not the container’. But according to Bhupal Govinda Shrestha, assistant professor at the Department of Biotechnology at Kathmandu University, you should care about the container, too, because after heating, the molecules holding the container vibrate, and loosen, causing some BPA and phthalates to leak into the food. The same with plastic wrappers: they tend to melt (not physically or in a way obvious to the naked eye) and drip, and contaminate the food.

The signs on the containers that read ‘microwave proof’ or ‘micro­wave safe’ only indicate that they are going to blow up and set you house on fire while cooking. They offer no guarantee whatsoever of being ‘leakage proof’, which is, if you think long term, is the greater evil.

So what should you do? As Shrestha of Kathmandu Universi­ty puts it, “Fire-cooked meals may take a little longer to prepare, but they pose less risk health-wise”.

When Gaurika Singh set eight national swimming records in the 2014 Galaxy Cup, young Nepali competitive swimmers like me were left flabbergasted. We would have been lucky to break one or two records—and here was this 13-year-old completely rewriting our record books. Singh is an inspiration for my generation. But in many ways com­paring her achievement with the achievements of other young Nepali swimmers is also unfair. Singh lives in England, where she can train, morning and night, right through the year. Swimmers here in Nepal can barely train for six months a year, and even that training is sub-par. As a national level competitive swimmer, I have experienced these problems first-hand. And so have the rest of the 130 registered swimmers who take part in national games every year, along with countless others who never make it that far.

 To compete internationally, we need to be able to train in an Olym­pic-sized (50m-long) swimming pool. But the only Olympic-sized pool in Kathmandu, the one at Satdobato (there is another one in Birgunj), we have to share with the public for three hours every day. Moreover, the pool is not heated in winters.

Invariably, our hard work goes down the drain during this long winter slough. National swimming head coach Ongden Lama likes to compare young Nepali swimmers to frogs in a well: “They learn to jump high, only to come crashing back”.

 All heat

We don’t even get bare minimum facilities. For instance, the national team should have a gym workout before training in water. But the gym at the Satdobato pool is always under lock and key. Swimmers should also consume food within 30 minutes of training. But by the time we reach our homes from Sat­dobato, it is usually too late.

The National Swimming Asso­ciation (NSA) started providing post-training diet to swimmers after the 2016 South Asian Games. But the little that is provided goes to the 10 swimmers who participate in the SAG, most of whom, in any case, can train on their own, in the Lin­coln School’s heated pool (because they are students there) or abroad (because they live there). But the rest of us are barred from Lincoln, nor do we have the wherewithal to go abroad.

With the funds it gets from FINA, the global competitive swimming regulator, the NSA arranges for some star athletes to go abroad and train. But no one knows what happens to the association’s own funds, collect­ed via private sponsors and parents of young swimmers. Even simple tasks, such as maintenance of the old pool, is being carried out by the Chinese government, which built the Satdobato complex in the first place.

Said one parent of a budding swimmer: “We had time and again contributed for the construction of a heated pool, to no avail”. The parent did not want to be named fearing that NSA officials, angry with her critical comment, would bar her child from future competitions.

When I asked him about the miss­ing NSA funds, Ashok Bajracharya, the president of the association, hedged: “The private sector is only just starting to see swimming as a lucrative investment. This stands us in good stead for the future”.

Signs of hope

Thankfully, after years of pleading and pressure from parents as well as swimmers, the construction of the heated pool has finally begun, with 80 percent contribution coming from the government and 20 per­cent from the NSA. Why the abrupt change of heart? Because the coun­try is again hosting the South Asian Games in March 2019. Moreover, the association needs to show FINA something tangible for all the funds it gets. Some old problems, such as leakage in the Satdobato pool, are suddenly being solved now.

Whether this is a mark of real change in the way competitive swim­ming is governed in Nepal or a blip on the NSA radar remains to be seen. Fingers crossed.