Say it how it is.

Another summer, another diet. This year though I'm not alone. It seems a lot of my friends are now battling the middle aged bulge and are finding their bodies just aren't playing ball as easily as they used to. The pounds go on so blooming easily but are a swine to come off.

Weight sticks relentlessly to the bits we'd really rather it didn't, the days of springing out of bed are long gone as the joints creak and grumble, everything seems that bit more of an effort. If that weren't enough, we've got the menopause just around the corner to look forward to as well, oh joy.

Which is why it's more important than ever to be able to laugh at this inevitable ageing process, to see the funny side of the stiff knees, squidgy tummies and fine lines. This is where kids, with all their straightforwardness, come in handy, they don't let you take yourself too seriously, they say it how it is.

One of my girlfriends decided she'd had enough of the weight slowly but surely going on, she was fed up with her clothes not fitting, of feeling lumpy and bumpy. The time had come to do something about it, the day had come to join a slimming club.

Now anyone who has ever gone down the slimming club route will know that while it definitely works, it's joyless and humiliating. There is little worse than that moment of stepping on the scales for the first time in front of a lithe, energetic instructor and seeing what you've been denying but can't avoid any longer - that you're not 'just a few pounds over 10 stone' and haven't been for a very long time.

My friend took her 14-year-old daughter along for moral support to her first 'fat club' class. She filled out the forms, listened to the nutrition pep talk, jumped around in the exercise class and then came the ghastly moment, she stepped on the scales, with her daughter joining her for the weigh in and peering over her shoulder.

There was a sharp intake of breath from them both then a long silence as they took in the figure on the digital scales.

Well mum', piped up her daughter chirpily, 'it's a good thing you've got dad.'

'Why's that?', asked my friend.

'Because you've no chance of getting another man weighing that much,' came the reply.