The Economist Magazine Cover For 07-13-2023

The Economist Read in browser JULY 13TH 2024 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image The Economist Edward Carr Deputy editor This week news about elections in Britain and France rumbled on, as did Joe Biden’s unsteady presidential campaign. But we decided to step back and focus on an issue in which a little effort could do a vast amount of good. This is the quest to help young brains reach their potential. Around the world, 22% of under-fives—roughly 150m children—are malnourished to the point of stunting. Half the world’s children suffer from micronutrient deficiency, which can also impede brain development. Poor nutrition and a lack of stimulation can translate into a loss of as many as 15 IQ points. This can lower incomes by a quarter. Damage during the “golden window” of the first 1,000 days after conception is likely to be permanent. Demography adds urgency to appeals for action: fertility is highest in countries where malnutrition is most widespread. This calls to mind alphabetti spaghetti, a dish seemingly brought into existence by a rhyme. Here we have the brainy version, in which a young Einstein is picking out the famous equation for mass-energy equivalence. It’s fun, but it’s Western. The ill-nourishment we are talking about is in poor and middle-income countries. Two slices of bread have been chomped to create the negative space for a brain. That fits our story. Many parents, even in middle-income countries, think it is enough to stuff an infant with stodgy carbohydrates but neglect protein and micronutrients. Sexism plays a role, too. In patriarchal societies, husbands often eat first, wolf the tasty protein and leave their pregnant wives short of iron. This is clever, but hard to grasp. Here is a cover based on phrenology, which mapped cranial bumps onto character traits. The missing piece just happens to resemble a floret of broccoli. It makes sense for us to point to science. Researchers in Bangladesh are looking into how most women in local slums have inflamed intestines, meaning they lack the right gut bacteria to absorb nutrients properly. In Africa scientists are working out how to treat anaemia (a lack of iron) without encouraging malaria (since the parasite thrives in iron-rich blood). Yet phrenology is utterly bogus. In a field like nutrition, which itself has a weakness for fads and fantasies, that makes it an unfortunate metaphor. This is a beautiful design. For want of a brain-shaped handful of beans, young minds are being stunted. Families sheltering from warfare cannot venture out to plant or harvest. Hungry children fall sick more often, and the energy they spend battling bugs cannot be devoted to growing grey matter. But we felt the begging-bowl sent the wrong message. Poverty is far from the only cause of brain-stunting malnutrition. Roughly half of the small children who have very restricted diets do not come from poor families. Often the problem is simply that parents do not understand what makes a balanced diet. The broccoli is back, stylised to look like a brain. It conveys our focus on childhood, nutrition and intelligence, which is good. But it also looks too much like a cover on eating five helpings of fruit and vegetables a day. That is a commendable habit, but it is not our focus. We liked this better. We have rendered the world-brain in gold, because pinkish-grey was off-putting. Here you can see the great longitudinal fissure separating the cerebrum. It seemed overly anatomical, so we tried rotating the hemispheres to create an echo of the equator. Because that looked wrong, too, we opted for a uniform, wrinkled, golden sphere. Over the years our cover has featured many images of war and destruction. And yet a simple brain was too much to stomach. It’s funny what makes people squeamish. Cover image • View large image (“How to raise the world’s IQ”) Backing stories → How to raise the world’s IQ (Leader) → Small investments in nutrition could make the world brainier (Briefing) → Schools in rich countries need to get back to basics (Special report) Also from The Economist