Rapid and urgent action on food is needed if the UK is to reboot its flagging economy, save the NHS billions, ensure national food security, and meet climate commitments, according to a new report.

The Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050, calls for radical transformation, at a scale and pace not seen since the Second World War. It says if we do not act now, change will be forced upon us by increasing pressures and the UK will lurch from crisis to crisis, including from food price shocks, climate disasters and weakening economic productivity.

Poorer health is linked to a higher proportion of votes for the populist right wing political party, Reform UK, indicates an analysis of the 2024 general election voting patterns in England, published online in the open access journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research. The findings should prompt policy-makers of all political stripes to step up efforts to improve public health and tackle health inequalities, suggest the researchers.

Sports footwear manufacturers need to ditch the ‘shrink it and pink it’ approach to women’s running shoes, because this is failing to differentiate their distinct anatomical and biomechanical needs across the life course from those of men, concludes a small qualitative study published in the open access journal BMJ Open Sports & Exercise Medicine. Female-, rather than male-based, designs might not only boost women runners’ comfort, but also enhance injury prevention, and their performance, say the researchers.