Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, gives a mischievous smirk and admits: “I
smoked when I was a young woman. Even now I enjoy sniffing a bit of passive
when I walk outside a building and people are smoking there.”
It's an altogether surprising admission from Jowell, 60, a highly charged
fitness fanatic who in public has an unsettling tendency to shelter behind
clouds of Labour Newspeak.
Jowell's constant on-message crusade, in the 11 years since she first entered
government as Public Health Minister (becoming Secretary of State for
Culture, Media and Sport in 2001) has been to try to get Britain off its
lardy old bum and out exercising. Considering our nation's exponential
growth in obesity and inactivity rates, it may seem a Canute-like task, but
Jowell remains undaunted. Her latest attempt - on top of trying to harness
the London Olympics to inspire the nation's sedentary youth - involves
setting a good example by publicly joining 11 other female MPs and MSPs in a
gym-going fitness drive.
This week she is joining a three-month exercise-mentoring programme, conducted
by the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF), to show that busy women
can fit regular exercise into their hectic lives and feel healthier. If it
sounds rather “Come on, gals”, there's no doubting Jowell's commitment. She
is already a gym-member who rises early to get her workout hit at least
three times a week (despite being somewhat injury-prone) and does Pilates at
a pal's.
Superwaif and a gym bunny
Her record on health-cajoling is impressive, if not thus far a blazing
success. In the past, among other things, she has tried to popularise
subsidised gym membership (criticised by a government report for failing to
yield results), promoted an “obesity action plan” pressing people to take
simple measures such as getting off the bus a stop early, and launched a
pre-Jamie Oliver “Cooking for Kids” programme.
At the other end of the body-problem spectrum, she became lampooned as
Labour's “superwaif” Minister for Women after a body-image summit she
convened over fears about size-zero models ended in farce.
Meanwhile, Britannia continues to get ever podgier and puffier. For example, a
new study commissioned by the WSFF and Scottish Widows, called It's Time,
suggests that 81 per cent of women are not doing enough sport or exercise to
benefit their health, often because of increasingly busy lives. Not our
minister, though.
Jowell, a mother of two children and three stepchildren, all grown up, has a
“brilliant young trainer” and an exercise programme, to which she adheres
faithfully. “The gym I go to, it's not plush, I'm exercising next to North
London taxi drivers,” she says. “I do a session with my trainer once a week
and do two to three sessions on my own, using what he has designed for me. I
have to do this early in the morning. It's a struggle in the winter, but a
pleasure in the summer. I get up at 6am. There's a nice life in the gym at a
quarter to seven in the morning. It's busy and buzzy.”
Twice a week, the minister can be found spinning away on one of the gym's
exercise bikes. “I also do cardio work and core stability and some weights.
I used to run a bit, do fun runs, but I don't enjoy it. Oh, and I do
Pilates, at a girlfriend's house. I've been doing this regime since last
August,” she says brightly. “I feel so completely different. If I don't go
to the gym for two weeks, I feel so pent up, sluggish and unfocused. It's a
real mind and body thing.”
Media speculation ran rife over Jowell's wellbeing when she separated from
David Mills two years ago after 27 years of marriage, following corruption
allegations (which he denies) involving an Italian tycoon. But today she
looks trim in blue blouse, slacks and sensibly sporty little shoes. I wonder
which body bits is she working on? “Well,” she stares straight ahead and
smiles politely, “We all have those things, and they change over time . . .”
But precisely which bits have ever caused concern, or might currently cause
concern, is not something on which she would be drawn.
“I don't do it for the body beautiful. I'm not going to step out on to the
beach in a bikeeeeni,” she stresses, stretching the word to absurdity. “But
all my clothes fit me now. I can run up and down stairs and whizz along
corridors, and there are a lot of corridors in the Commons.”
And does it make her feel, well, sexier?
“Sexier? I'm not sure I want to go there,” says the headline-wary minister.
“But I feel engaged and energetic. Spinning's the one thing that leaves me
feeling so simply great afterwards.”
What? That's the only thing?
“That makes me seem a bit sad, doesn't it? No, I'm sure I can say it's not the
only thing. But I'm sure I can increase my fitness. I'm sure I can push
myself to another level. Working out gives you a sense of control. I think a
lot about my problems when I'm doing cardio. It gets rid of stress and
hassle.”
And that's just the kind of thing that makes the difference between Jowell and
many of us lesser mortals. She's not in the gym for vanity or sexiness, but
for challenge, efficiency, health and control. It's the same with her
youthful smoking. Was it tough to give up? Not at all, she says, resolutely:
“I just stopped. It made me unhealthy, so it was easy.”
This brisk approach to health is understandable for one who grew up with a
doctor and a radiographer as parents. “I always wanted to be a doctor. But
there were expectations that I should become a nurse. I was just the wrong
side of the generation where girls could start to become doctors,” she says.
Instead, she moved into a career in psychiatric social work at Maudsley
Hospital in South London, in the early 1970s. To me it sounds like diving
headfirst into something rather hellish.
Not at all, she says. “I never felt depressed by that. I worked with the most
inspiring people at the Maudsley. Everyone I worked with was so optimistic.
A lot of the seriously mentally ill people I was working with were seeking
good relationships, feeling that they could be supported and looked after,
cared about. And the day hospital where I worked did that successfully in a
variety of ways. There was a very heavy focus on helping people back to
work. It may take five or six jobs to get one that the person could hold
down. But it gave them great meaning. I was always very optimistic and very
moved by the stoicism of people who recognised their own mental illness and
wanted their lives to be richer and fuller.”
With this characteristically relentless positivity, she moved into the charity
sector, as the assistant director of Mind, before entering politics,
becoming MP for Dulwich and West Norwood in 1992. “I felt that many of the
problems that people face wanted big solutions, so I went to a campaigning
organisation working for those big solutions. Then I went into politics to
try to do more to influence the lack of care.”
Slowed down by injury
Jowell's ability to soldier on regardless has also got her back into
exercising at points where many of us would simply resign ourselves to life
with a G&T and a remote control. “A year before last I tore one of the
cartilages in my knee and whenever I exercised after that it just swelled up
like a balloon,” she says. “I had been running through a field and I fell
into a hole. Foolishly I went for months before having it seen to by
doctors. By carrying on, I'd worsened the joint and it took me about a year
to become fully active again. It was the greatest liberation to be able to
exercise again.”
It's not the first time she has damaged herself. “I had a terrible fall about
20 years ago. The horse I was on shied. I was dragged for about 150 yards
and by the time I got my feet free I couldn't feel my legs. I thought I had
broken my back. Fortunately I hadn't, but it took 18 months for me to heal
fully. I used to be a very keen rider. My nerve went, and I've not ridden
since.” Instead she tried other sports. “I play tennis badly,” she grimaces.
“I had a coach. But he said that it would be easier for him to teach a
hemiplegic. So I don't really do that any more.”
Champion of the Olympics
Gym-going Jowell carries on regardless, but how is she planning to spur the
wider populace into a froth of activity in the run-up to the London 2012
Olympics? “There is no point making people feel bad about putting on weight
and sitting on the sofa,” she acknowledges. “This is what we are looking at
very carefully in trying to build in exercise regularly as part of the
motivation for the Olympics.”
Currently, the big bright idea is the Inspire Mark, an award system similar to
the Duke of Edinburgh's scheme, where a version of the Olympic logo will be
awarded for sport, culture, the environment and civic engagement. “It will
be awarded to schools, institutions, local organisations who do more than go
the extra mile, who reach another level in whatever it is that they are
concerned with,” Jowell explains.
I don't feel entirely whipped up by this, but Jowell insists that the
Government is on the brink of turning the tide against fat and unfit kids.
“In the past six years we've brought sport back into schools for children.
By 2012, the amount of time they spend doing sport in school will have
increased to five hours a week,” she says, getting into strident mode. “I
hope we will be moving into a golden age of sport. Young people today, from
an exercise point of view, were part of a lost generation whose school
playing fields were sold off.
“We need to block the trend where 70 per cent of young people stop playing
sport after leaving school. Our commitment to five hours a week sports will
extend to school leavers in further education, so it becomes a life habit.”
If there were an Olympic medal for political persistence, Jowell might already
be on the podium. But the problem with being such a paragon of on-message
health is that it's hard to see how couch-potato UK can identify with her.
For the great undermotivated, all this enthusiasm can look scary, rather
than inspiring. Now, if John Prescott were to get into role-modelling, join
a gym initiative and vow to get a six-pack in three months, that might well
be worth watching.
Tessa Jowell is taking part in the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation's
Exercise Programme for MPs which is being supported by Scottish Widows.
Visit www.wsff.org.uk
