WHY oh why oh why do women the world over have to endure the rigours of dieting?

Where to start for crying out loud. The Cabbage Soup. The Atkins. The South Beach. The Cookie.

One thing they have in common, apart from sapping your strength and making you miserable, is that they are all misogynistic regimes (largely invented by men) that aim to make women feel inadequate.

I mean really, how often is it that you see the opposite sex scrutinise food packages for sodium, carbohydrate, fat and calorie content?

No, they are happy to stuff their little faces far beyond their recommended 2,500 daily calorie allowance and still stay skinny as toothpicks.The injustice!

Yet why is it that I, a girl who, fingers crossed, has her head screwed on, succumb too to the horror that is bikini season (summer), post Christmas dinner syndrome (December/Jan obviously) and anywhere in between and guard my intake as fiercely as a lioness does her cubs?

Just to stress, it is a constant grind, rather like the hamster in its wheel yet that would be better because at least then we would always be burning the dreaded fat. Someone get me a human size rodent toy for God's sake!

I ran the Manchester 10km last Sunday. Ostensibly this was becuase I wanted to raise money for the worthy Brain & Spine Foundation.

Were my reasons selfless? Of course not!

Why does any woman take up running in the lead up to the holiday season? To look fit and toned in her two-piece obviously.

There, my cover is blown and any pretense is now out in the clear. I am vain rather than charitable so sue me.

I believe I am the same as any other woman. We all inherently want to look good to please the men around us however much this sounds like a sentiment from the Dark Ages and hardly feminist in attitude: "Oh please, let me look good for Master!"

To emphasise this point look at how broadcasters capitalise on that with shows such as Extreme Makeover, 10 Years Younger and How to Look Good Naked.

It really is enough to give us all inferiority complexes and please do not get me started on the size zero debate and how this ballooned (how contradictory) out of all proportion thanks to yet another media maelstrom.

Never have we been under so much pressure to be small and never have such non-proportions and near negativity been so idealised at any other time in history.

I mean to say it wasn't that long ago that women the world over would have given anything to have curves like Marilyn Monroe and I can assure you men DO prefer her body to the likes of waifs such as Victoria Beckham.

I mean to say there really is no comparison between a platinum screen goddess and a shrivelled alien-like former Spice Girl is there?

And look at Botticelli's Venus and all the pre-Raphaelite girls with their tumbling curls. They actually make me envious to think of them all wobbly yet proud!

I say girls ditch the diet and embrace a healthy ideal, not least dimension!