Is it worth trying to defy the 'manopause'?

For women, this is summed up as the menopause. Now, the male of the species has a word for his equivalent. Welcome to the manopause.

The signs of manopausal manhood are all around us. The streets are clogged with middle-aged men in Lycra or MAMILs desperately trying to channel their inner Sir Bradley Wiggins as they squeeze into entirely unsuitable, skin-tight clothing and thrash the pedals of their 1,000-plus racing bikes (the opportunity to spend fortunes on exciting new kit is, of course, one of MAMIL-doms great attractions).

When not on their expensive bikes, the frantically fitness-crazed over-40s are heading off to the gym. According to one recent survey, men in their forties, inspired by their beefcaked movie star contemporaries such as Hugh Jackman, 45, Gerard Butler, 44, and The Rock, 42, are the fastest-growing sector of the bodybuilding market.

Meanwhile, though men still account for just 10 per cent of plastic surgery procedures in the UK, the number of male patients is growing fast. British stars such as Wayne Rooney and James Nesbitt have made hair transplants much more socially acceptable, Simon Cowell swears by his Botox, and a growing number of male celebrities have clearly had, even if they will not admit to face lifts, collagen injections new hair and new teeth.

To Mark Simpson, the writer and style-spotter who coined the term metrosexual for the preening male of the 1990s, manopause mania reflects massive changes both in societys response to growing older and in masculinity itself.

Simpson, who is 49 and admits that I go to the gym and worship at the temple of the selfie, points out that middle age used to be a time when men could enjoy their accomplishments and their families and maybe coast a bit. But now that securitys gone. Today, there are only two ages of man: young man and old man. So you have to stay young as long as possible.

He agrees when I suggest that the financial independence of women, and the success with which many women are keeping their looks, figures and libidos well into middle age, has created a pressure for men to keep up. But, he points out: Of course, most straight men care very much what women think of them, but its not the case that everything they do is calculated to get women into bed. In the end, its about how men feel about themselves, and what other men think of them.

The proof of this can be seen in the mens magazine market. The top-selling title in the UK shifting more than 200,000 copies a month is not a lads mag filled with pictures of semi-naked babes, but Mens Health, whose target reader is 35 and whose typical cover features an improbably six-packed, chiselled male model and headlines that scream Huge arms, lean abs, Gain muscle, lose pounds and Get a body like this.

So is this little more than an attack of excessive vanity among a feminised generation that has lost the ability to act like real men? Simpson insists not. People tend to think of narcissism, especially among men, as an idle, dissipating, poisonous force. But actually, narcissism is self-care as well as self-love, and without it no creature can survive.

Not surprisingly perhaps, Mike Shallcross, the deputy editor of Mens Health, agrees that there is a practical, beneficial side to the manopause. Men no longer equate settling down with giving up. Theyre becoming more health-conscious, more aware of their appearance, and more aware of the value of free time and they want to use it more actively.

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Is it worth trying to defy the 'manopause'?