Konnie Huq

I remember as a kid liking long, funny words. And often being into things like that can be perceived as square. But actually, as we know now that we're adults, it's really cool. The more knowledge you have, the better.

In a 24/7 landscape of rolling news, social media, phone alerts and notifications it's all too easy to feel numbed by all the shouting.

In the UK we have general elections roughly every four or five years because we know circumstances, situations and therefore opinions change over time.

A Final Say referendum on the Brexit that actually lies in front of us will give everyone a tangible and decisive vote. I and most people, Brexiteers and Remainers alike, want the same thing - the best for the UK.

No one went to the ballot box to vote for something worse than the status quo.

My husband has a wife who is happy to wander round in old leggings held up with worn elastic. I'm happy with who I am and I'm more concerned with other issues and trying any way I can to make a better world for our children.

Being a 'Blue Peter' presenter is not well paid.

There were no small brown kids as the centre of the children's fiction I grew up with.

My parents were first-generation immigrants. My mum wore a sari but at school and as a teenager and in my 20s I wanted to fit in.

If you're broke and you're living on the street and you're happy, you're still winning compared to someone who is rich and depressed, because your mental wellbeing is still there.

Mental health really is a search to be happy, I think that's what people want in life - and if you're happy you're winning.

When I was growing up, I always felt a bit like I didn't quite fit in, a feeling that perhaps still lingers in the background to this very day. I was the small brown girl in the big white suburb.

I think relaxation is escaping from your everyday encounters. You can read the words on a page and be transported to somewhere else. And the more consumed you are with it, the more you're cocooned.

A serious economic downturn will undermine women's rights on multiple levels. And it is the women who are already the most disadvantaged, that will be hit hardest of all.

I used to watch TV in the days that I was on TV. But in that time, streaming has come along. So I can honestly say, I have no idea what's on real-time TV.

I'm lucky in that the media is much more freelancey. So I didn't have that pressure that lots of people have if you jump off the ladder, then you get left behind.

I did this show for Sky called 'King of the Nerds', which was a reality show looking for the world's biggest nerd, essentially, celebrating the geek, which is also what I'm about.

I grew up as a Muslim: it was quite a conservative upbringing; I didn't wear mini-skirts. But my mum and dad had a good sense of humour and were creative. I guess all of that shaped me.

An experience that shaped me happened early in my TV career when I filmed in Mozambique, Angola and Bangladesh for 'Blue Peter' and Comic Relief. Places with extreme poverty. When you see that first-hand as a young person, you take it with you for life.

I've become more cause-driven as I've got older. Maybe that's a result of having kids; you become less carefree and more worried about things.

In general, I think we're more or less shaped and formed by our late 20s. Things come along during that time that make us cynical. By the time you're in your 30s, it's hard to unpick those mindsets that have formed. It takes years of therapy to undo them.

My parents are proof that arranged marriages can work. It is a great part of my culture but I grew up in a completely different place, so I wouldn't want anyone to arrange a marriage for me.

I've never been more terrified than when I learned how to paramotor. They attached this machine to my back, as if I was a stuntman in a James Bond movie, and I had to fly over all these trees and patches of concrete in Cirencester.

Blue Peter' scarred me for life. I was kayak-surfing in Cornwall and the waves were so strong it was more like white-water rafting. I had to hang on for dear life. At one point I let go and my hand was crushed on a rock.

One minute you're up a mountain, the next you're down a well. One minute you're with Tony Blair, the next you're with McFly. Ten years feels like two years when you're in the 'Blue Peter' bubble.

If, as statistics suggest, millennials' diets are more plant-based than ever, and we continue to bring up our kids to eat less or no meat, the future could be bright - the future could be vegan.

We need to take back control of our political process. We know so much more about what Brexit will mean, and the health implications, especially for those who are already in a disadvantaged position.

Ethnic minority women generally have poorer outcomes from their pregnancy compared to white women.

An emergency on the labour ward needs to be addressed within minutes or else lifelong disability or even death can follow for the baby or mother.

By fermenting tiny single-cell organisms we will be able to synthesise all manner of foodstuffs in the future, everything from pasta to eggs, fish and meat. Small tweaks in the process will enable production of different proteins used to replicate food we already eat.

You see, the thing about us humans is we overcomplicate things. To eat, our food manufacturing processes work on a huge scale, clearing land, rearing livestock, killing it, packaging it. Go big, only to shrink it all back down to small enough to shove in our mouths.

Motivation levels differ person to person, as does the time since failing new year resolutions.

Forget quantitative easing - I've always thought the idea of injecting virtual money into the system is an accident waiting to happen.

Never mess with other people's kids. You will never win. It's the child's word against yours and they have parental reinforcements as back-up. You just can't triumph.

We rip out a perfectly good kitchen worth thousands of pounds, only to replace it with another costing roughly the same. The old one has to be disposed of, the new one had to be made. From raw materials, factory processes and transportation the extra effort is substantial. Overcomplication.

In all aspects of our society we overcomplicate things under the guise of making things easier and simpler, when in fact we are doing the opposite.

I was mindful that clothes, objects and items had all been designed and manufactured. Thought had gone into those processes, so to mindlessly treat everything without care or as disposable was disrespectful. Things should be valued.

Growing up as the youngest daughter to immigrant parents, it was instilled in me from an early age to not be wasteful and to be respectful of money and possessions.

I don't really worry about things, I'm too busy.

Back in humanity's hunter-gatherer days, you only ate meat if you'd recently made a kill, which required a huge amount of effort, and was therefore relatively rare. There's a reason humans only have one set of incisors to rip our meat apart: we're not supposed to eat the stuff at every meal.

When we oldies were kids, there was little on offer, food wise, particularly for people with restricted diets.

The thing about local government is they want to hear what local people think, but for the most part, their systems are so long, dull and bureaucratic that people only get involved when there's an issue they really care about.

About the only useful thing my economics degree taught me was that, in all decisions in life, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis.

I'm all for education - in fact, I have spent my career extolling its virtues.

When they do actually get pregnant, most expectant mothers understandably keep the whole thing a secret because of how fragile the first four months can be.

Having seen many of my friends go through the trial of trying month after month to conceive, then finally the joy of getting pregnant followed by the heartbreak of miscarriage, I know how lonely and isolating it can be to have to go back to square one carrying that heartbreak with you.

A problem shared is a problem halved, but as with so many problems affecting women - periods, menopause, post-natal depression - we often feel embarrassed, as if we're moaning or just plain wrong to air them.

Most people don't go around talking about their miscarriages. It's not really something you shout about. What's more, people often feel embarrassed or even guilty about them.

Let's have a People's Vote to safeguard gender equality and continue the drive towards a fairer world for us all.

Increased tariffs and a weakened pound would mean higher food prices, hurting the poorest families - and the women trying to make ends meet at the heart of them - the most.