Why a weight loss pill can be a good thing

Last Christmas my siblings and I gave my mum the gift of a cleaner. Once a fortnight the cleaner comes in and gives the house a 'top to bottom' clean, which doesn't take long in my mum's small house. My mum doesn't need a cleaner but I knew that she would like a cleaner.

My mum has never liked cleaning. I can remember as a teenager that she would head upstairs with a duster in her hand and mutter something about dusting. However if you went upstairs you would find her on her bed, duster lying next her, as she enjoyed reading her book.

Now a very fit and healthy woman in her 70s she is absolutely able to clean her house, but she hates cleaning. So a cleaner was an ideal present. It is the sort of present that keeps on giving.

Every Tuesday there is a large red car in our road that stops for a few hours outside three houses. They are a local cleaning business and get business through word of mouth referrals. The houses they clean belong to busy mums who work part-time and would prefer to spend their free time doing something other than cleaning.

I have heard that some women feel guilty about not keeping their own house clean. I can only suppose that as a child they overheard or were even taught that a woman isn't a real woman unless she looks after the home and made that mean that they had to be the ones that cleaned it. Surely paying a cleaner is part of looking after your home. Who would want to have to do everything themselves? Not for me, that's for sure.

I agree that there are some things that we should earn, such as a qualification. I am aware that you can buy certain post-graduate degrees but for me that would feel like cheating. However there are many people who believe that taking some kind of supplement to aid weight loss and weight management is also cheating. I used to be one of these people. But the more I talked to women about their needs, wants and desires the more I came to realise that taking a weight loss/management supplement is like having a cleaner. You can do it all by yourself or you can get some help and enjoy more of your free time.

What are your thoughts on this?

Sarah