Manufacturers' measurements do not take into account the caloric value of fibre

The Vimto and Sunkist soft drinks maker Nichols saw its shares fizz up yesterday after it said it would beat City forecasts despite last year's dire weather.

There's a risk that in using choirs for everything from helping fragmented communities to stress relief, we drag them down to the level of the mundane

Living a healthy lifestyle into old age can extend your innings by up to six years, research has shown.

Four years ago, South Africa arrived at this point like men who were intent on breaking the record for the planet's longest party. They had won the Test series and frankly the one-day games could take care of themselves.

'What should I wear to my honeymoon in jail?" I asked myself as I wandered through Bergdorf Goodman, my favourite store on Fifth Avenue. I walked in the steps of women like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly who had shopped at Bergdorf's before me. I perused the racks of Chanel, Marni, Gucci and Dior. It was the dead heat of a summer in the city, 1999, and my honeymoon was to take place in the Sullivan County Prison in New York State, home to the Son of Sam serial killer, where my new husband, Gil, was serving 10 years for robbery.

Bad news for people trying to lose weight. A new assessment of how the body responds to dieting shows that it is about twice as difficult as previously thought to shed fat.

Acute little naked baby is grinning at the camera. "Is this the happiest she'll ever be about her appearance?" asks the slogan on the billboard. The ad was for a campaign last year to save future generations of women and girls from hating their bodies. For the explosion in cosmetic surgery – and the explosion of breast implants inside women's bodies – is just a symptom of a corrosive unhappiness that begins only a few years after birth.

Fad diets are nothing new – people have been following them for two millennia. A look back on 20 centuries of bingeing, purging, snake oil and strange ideas

New Year Honours: Unsung Heroes

The early indications are that Tony McCoy should be sidelined for around a fortnight after being sent to hospital yesterday with suspected rib fractures, sustained in a fall at Taunton.

Ever since we witnessed the dispiriting sight of mothers feeding their children takeaway burgers through the fence on a Jamie Oliver show, school dinners have become political.

Don't rush to applaud fast food restaurants for displaying calorie counts on their Big Macmenus. This move, which comes as part of a deal between the Government and the food industry, might look enlightened, but it is no more than a marketing ploy that will yield no rewards for the nation's health.