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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Making health care more compassionate and scalable might seem impossible, but for eye surgeon and TED fellow Andrew Pastouris, you can't truly do one without the other.
I think there's very few things in life that are as joyful as being able to help a fellow human being. People aren't inherently not caring or not compassionate. If the environment is one that doesn't allow people to stop and care, then people don't live to their values.
In an exclusive interview, learn why the founder of a health tech company that's reached more than 18 million people is focusing on compassionate health care over speed and efficiency and how his lessons apply to all areas of life. It's coming up on the latest episode of our Fellows Friday series only on TED Talks Daily.
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. How much does body type really affect athletic performance? In this talk, sports nutritionist Dominique Kondo explores the hidden pressures that female athletes face. and why so many women still feel judged more for how they look than for what they can achieve.
Drawing on research and real-world experience with elite athletes, she shares practical ways to build cultures that value strength, confidence, and well-being.
4.35 a.m., the alarm goes off. 5am, a 50k training ride. 6.30am, a strength session, often fighting through muscle fatigue and sometimes even period cramps. 8am, breakfast with a nutrition plan calculated to the gram. 9am, off to work or university, because many female athletes juggle jobs or study with their sporting careers. Now that's a fairly typical morning for many elite female athletes.
Strong, disciplined, driven and constantly measured. Isn't the female body extraordinary? It adapts, it endures, it creates life, it recovers from injury, responds to training and achieves feats of skill, strength and power once thought impossible. And yet, in 2025, women are still judged more for how they look than for what they can do. Judged more for how they look than for what they can do.
At the top of their game, up to 70% of elite female athletes report body image concerns. You heard me, up to 70%. Now, this is women with Olympic medals, premiership trophies, world records, and still they feel the pressure to look a certain way, which is often at direct opposition with how they need to build their bodies for competitive success.
Now, this topic is such a passion of mine because I live and work in this space every day. I am surrounded by some of the most intelligent, hardworking, resilient women in sport. Women who can outrun, outlive and outthink most people in the room and yet they battle a world that comments on their appearance before their capability. How is this fair, I ask you?
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Chapter 2: What hidden pressures do elite female athletes face?
And even Olympic champion Emma McKeon has spoken openly about the pressure of appearance in swimming. So the take home? Yes, physique and performance may be linked. But appearance should never overshadow capability. So what happens when the balance tips the wrong way? Well, athletes can under-fuel. And from here, we see the cascade of events.
Hormonal dysregulation, menstrual dysfunction, fatigue, bone loss, slower recovery. The result? Performance declines, strength plateaus, injuries mount. And this isn't just specific to athletes. Think about your own life. When was the last time you skipped a meal, trained, exhausted or didn't sleep well? Did you perform better? Well, neither do they, except their livelihoods depend on it.
Prolonged low energy availability has been shown to reduce power output, endurance capability and decision making. And that is why we cannot separate body image from performance. So is this all doom and gloom, or how do we fix it? Well, we build environments that are performance-focused and athlete-centred. So what does that mean?
Well, it means education in fuelling, in energy availability, in menstrual health, and not just for athletes, for coaches as well. It means individualisation because optimal body composition is specific to the individual athlete. language protocols that are private, functional and constructive, and choice in testing, in uniform and in timing. And here's the thing.
When we do these things, performance improves. I've seen teams transform, confidence rises, engagement lifts, results follow. And this is not about lowering standards or wrapping athletes up in cotton wool. It's about raising awareness so we can pursue that excellence safely, intelligently and sustainably. Now, some sport are leading the way in this space.
IOC, Safe Sport Initiatives and professional organisations like Swimming Australia who have invested in education, language training and measurement standards. But it takes everyone, coaches, administrators and the public. Now, you might still be sitting there thinking, really, what does this have to do with me? Again, this is not just about elite sport.
All of us have felt the weight of appearance in some way. For women, that might be to be smaller, thinner, more feminine. For men, it may be to be taller, bigger, more masculine. Think about it. When was the last time you compared yourself in the mirror, at the gym or online? praised for losing weight when no one actually asking if you're happy or healthy.
Or took 20 photos before posting one because you didn't like the way you looked. Now imagine that pressure times by a thousand. Your body constantly scanned, discussed, linked directly to your contract. And men aren't immune to this either.
Research has shown that male athletes and teenagers also struggle with body image, maybe not to be thinner, but to be broader, stronger, more muscular, more defined. Different pressure, same story. The reality is we're all living under performance expectations shaped by appearance. But for young women getting into sport out there, I want you to know your body is not the barrier to success.
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