How many guys have heard this before: "Just look at her mother, then you'll know how she will look in twenty years..."

I suspect many women would find a statement such as this insulting. Only a man could say such a thing, right? Wrong. As a woman, and due to my experience living in an appearance-obsessed society, I believe this statement to be, in fact, valid.

We have all heard the complaints:

"No matter how much I diet, how many sit-ups I do, how many hours I spend on the treadmill, I just cannot flatten my stomach!"

"I wish my hair was curly.."

"I wish my hair was straight..."

"Darn these pimples, anyway! I thought I was supposed to be finished with this after high school!"

There are dozens more that we have all heard or uttered ourselves since puberty took its toll. Being a woman is not easy, we will all admit to that.

Whenever I am at the health club, I find myself hounded by these thoughts. As I sweat, and pant, and torment myself, I cannot fend off the bitterness that creeps into my mind. Have you ever looked around an exercise facility? Who do you see doing all the work? Is it the sunny blonde with the size six figure, wearing black spandex? Is it the svelte brunette wearing a thong and a cut-off tee-shirt? If I am right, your answer to these questions was a resounding: "NO!". Probably the people who stand out in your mind are the chubby girl, red in the face and sweat-stained as she pedals madly on the stationary bike, the white-haired, middle-aged woman with the pot-belly running endless circles around the track, or maybe the morbidly obese woman swimming ambitious laps in the pool.

Which brings me back to the issue at hand - is it genetics? I am sure there are exceptions to the rule, those that we gaze upon with envy who have worked hard and suffered to look the way they do. Consider our Hollywood examples (those who have not surgically altered their genetic make-up, of course), many of whom claim to work hard to maintain their knock-out appearance. But am I the only one who finds celebrities like Rosie O'Donnell or Roseanne refreshing? The blonde in the spandex, the brunette in the thong and cut-off tee, these are the ones you see strolling about the gym, tossing their hair over their shoulder flirtatiously, circling the guys' weight-lifting area, not a drop of perspiration to be seen. If they do lift a weight, it is seldom above ten pounds while you are struggling to lift sixty. Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Genetics.

These girls do not work because they do not need to (or at least feel they do not need to; after all, we all require exercise, no matter what our body type). If you were to look through their family, one generation to the next, most likely you will discover all the women are svelte, slender, beautifully coiffed, with immaculate skin, not a varicose vein or stretch mark to be seen. We envy these women for good reason.

Then, there are those of us who have to work. We show up at the gym, wearing loose, cotton shorts and a baggy top, our hair a dishevelled mess as we exercise until we are dead on our feet, only to return to the change room, quickly change back into our street clothes and hurry home to take our shower, too embarrassed to be seen naked amongst the giggling, gossiping girls at the neighbouring lockers. Our mothers were probably exactly like us, overweight, self- conscious. Our grandmothers were the same, our sisters, aunts, our cousins.

So, how do we overcome this? If we are exercising, we are already on the right track. Okay, so maybe the idea of wearing a thong and matching spandex bra is out of the question, maybe we do not turn heads as we stroll through the weight- lifting zone, but if the truth be known, we are probably in better physical shape than those we so envy.

This is not to say we might as well surrender, we are fighting a losing battle, anyway. But we should not feel pressured to fulfill some ideal image. Do your sit- ups, but if your stomach still does not go down, do not beat yourself up over it. If your legs are still bigger than you would like, increase your weights, but do not torture yourself. After all, your mother's legs were always big and your father has loved her devotedly for twenty years and counting. Take care of yourself, like yourself, appreciate where you come from.

The next time someone comes up to you and says, "My, but you are the spitting image of your mother," smile and say with pride, "Thank you. I think so, too."