If, however, you have richer pursuits in mind and know that no woman should be judged by how she looks - that everything she brings to the party is more important than the size of her arse - then refuse to be sucked into the never ending whirligig of self-doubting, self-hating madness that is stop-start dieting and crazy new exercise regimes.

I don't think I've got the expertise with which to nit-pick, and I freely admit that my motivation to support charities has been emotional, rather than as a result of being particularly well informed as to how the money is used.

I wish my parents hadn't made me feel that how I looked was linked to how much they loved me. But I do also see how hard it must be to see your child pile on the pounds and trust they'll find their own way back to a healthy weight.

I'm the co-chair of the PTA at my kids' school, Ashmount Primary, in north Islington, London.

Sticking to a diet required me to have a permanently low self-esteem. But happily, I developed other skills beyond a fluctuating weight, eventually building up a different source of self-worth.

My parents' generation's benchmark was simple: Fat Equals Bad.

Does everyone turn into a truculent thirteen-year-old when they go home, or is it just me?