A new dream man has dropped – the laid-back, confident beefcake | Emma Beddington

How do you like your men? Yes, obviously, we shouldn’t be dismissively taxonomising a whole gender like boxed Barbies. But in the era of tradwives and nu-gen gold diggers, in which the manosphere remains alive and kick(box)ing, telling teenage boys lies about women, I reckon there’s a way to go before we reach reductive objectification parity. Does that make it OK? No. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes, a bit.So, returning to the question, my answer is “like my coffee”: small, strong, dark and highly over-stimulating, brewed by my sister’s boyfriend in Scarborough … No, hang on, this is falling apart

Private menopause tests risk undermining NHS care, doctors say

Expensive, over-the-counter hormone tests for menopause are clinically useless and risk undermining women’s healthcare, senior doctors have warned.The testing kits, offered by private clinics and available to buy for self-testing, claim to offer tailored insights through measuring hormone levels. But they have been described by experts as misleading and medically unnecessary.“There are lots of private healthcare and telehealth clinics offering tests and increasing numbers of medically untrained, self-proclaimed ‘experts’ giving advice on social media and podcasts to get these tests done,” said Dr Stephanie Sterry, who recently co-wrote an editorial for the BMJ titled Menopause Misinformation is Harming Care.“Unfortunately, these tests are not evidence-based,” she added

‘I still want to achieve’: people living with stage 4 cancer embrace Chris Hoy charity ride

Mel Erwin is pragmatic about what it took to get her on a bike. “I have one and a half lungs. I’m on a treatment drug. I don’t identify as sporty. I wouldn’t have done it without a goal

Food industry lobbying is leading Labour to drop public health plans, experts say

Denis CampbellHealth policy editorLabour has scrapped ambitious plans to tackle Britain’s growing toll of lifestyle-related illness after lobbying by food and alcohol firms, health experts have said.Ministerial inaction on ill-health caused by bad diet, alcohol and smoking is so serious that the NHS could collapse as a result of conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, they warn.Bold pledges Labour made before being elected to drive through a “prevention-first revolution” have been replaced by “diluted ambition” and a lack of leadership on the scourge of avoidable disease.The charge against ministers has been made by Sarah Woolnough and Jennifer Dixon, the chief executives of the influential King’s Fund and Health Foundation thinktanks.They welcome Labour moves on reducing smoking, banning junk food advertising to children and outlawing energy drink sales to under-16s in England

School dental service served children well | Letter

In the 1960s, I trained as a dental auxiliary (later known as dental therapists). We were trained to fill in gaps in the school dental service and could do simple fillings, extractions of baby teeth and dental health education (The Guardian view on the dental divide: ministers must brush up their policy as well as children’s teeth, 2 September). I worked for over 20 years in the school dental service.The school dental officer would visit every school in their area. If children needed treatment their parents were sent a card

Equalities watchdog submits formal guidance after UK supreme court transgender ruling

The equalities watchdog has submitted its formal guidance about how institutions should respond to the landmark supreme court ruling on transgender people’s rights, with its chair admitting it would be “difficult” for many to shape workable policies.The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has handed the guidance to Bridget Phillipson, the minister for women and equalities as well as the education secretary, who must now decide whether to accept it.One EHRC source said that while the decision-making on the guidance was restricted to a small group of people around the group’s outgoing chair, Kishwer Falkner, the expectation was that it would closely reflect interim advice released by the watchdog in April.This alarmed transgender groups, who said its guidance that the supreme court’s ruling that the legal definition of a woman was based just on biological sex meant transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, and that in some cases they could not use toilets of their birth sex, would effectively exclude transgender people from much of the public realm.It also said that organisations such as sports clubs or hospitals could ask to see someone’s birth certificate if there was “genuine concern” about what biological sex they are