I HAD expected to keep mum about my problem with Michelle Obama until after the election, but my frustration has gotten the better of me. I can contain it no longer.

I refer not to her politics, but to her arms — her bare, toned, elegant arms. Enough!

The first lady has made it unacceptable for women to appear in public with covered arms. However innocently,Christmas Costume however unwittingly, that is what she has done. Those bare, toned, elegant arms of hers have spawned an epidemic of sleevelessness, exposing arms, arms,One-Shoulder Wedding Dresses arms, and not all of them toned and elegant.

This should not come as a surprise. Not all women are blessed with the first lady's workout discipline or genetic gifts. That is especially true of most of us over the age of,Beach Wedding Dresses say, 50, or, to be more liberal, 50ish. Or, to be more candid, older.

To us, the naked arm taunts — as tall taunts short, as lithe taunts square.

This I know because I am significantly beyond the age of 50 or even 50ish, and began anticipating upper arm betrayal many years before reality struck. I spent untold hours swimming (emphasis on the backstroke), lifting weights, struggling through bench dips, perfecting triceps push-ups, speed-walking with flexed hands pumping backward — all in a very determined effort to keep my arms looking as they did when I was 20. In fact, I started doing all of the above when I was about 20. Once, I let my enthusiasm spill over and shouted “Yay!” when a workout instructor announced she was moving from biceps curls to triceps kickbacks. My outburst drew several bemused looks.wholesale underwear

Of course, you know where this is going. My triceps have not taken kindly to my disciplinary regime. Let me put it another way: my exercises have failed. A bona fide boomer, I now have the very same arms I remember seeing on my mother, even though she was a powerful swimmer all of her life who had hoped to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics — until Hitler made that a most unwise aspiration for a Jewish New Yorker.

Aging as one's mother did is a fact of life, and I should have expected it. I guess I did. Years ago, a physical therapist predicted as much when I asked her to recommend especially rigorous exercises for my recalcitrant triceps. “Did your mother have, forgive the phrase, flabby upper arms?” she asked. “Did your grandmother? Then, sorry, you will.”

O.K., not the worst thing in the world, not by a long shot. But still, hard to take in this world of nonstop arms. Bare arms now often trump cleavage, have you noticed? What woman on the red carpet at this year's Emmys dared hide her shoulders? (Other than Julianne Moore — for reasons known only to her and her stylist — and Mayim Bialik, an observant Jew who covered up pretty much everything.)

TLC's “Say Yes to the Dress,” an ode to wedding-dress angst, is a virtual parade of arms, some well-cut, some not even close. I did not even have to look at the current issue of Vogue to know that arms would dominate it — in this case belonging to Keira Knightley. Surely Lady Gaga allowed herself to be pictured on the September cover wearing a semi-sleeved gown just to underscore her fondness for being different.

And when was it, exactly, that female reporters on television adopted slavish sleevelessness as their compulsory fashion statement? Mika Brzezinski seems to favor the look year-round, or close to it, sometimes returning from commercial breaks with a protective sweater. Now, she happens to be able to hold her own in the arms department. May I suggest that some of her colleagues, a growing cohort of copycat arm-flashers, might want to check the mirror before again preening sans sleeves?

I realize that modesty is now a quaint notion in most endeavors, and that quite a few women (not all — please hold your e-mail blasts) who call themselves reporters have long faced the television cameras determined to advertise attributes other than their brains. But I digress; back to bare arms.

First ladies often set fashion trends, since no matter what their other accomplishments, the country obsesses about their appearance. Nothing new there. Women tried Mamie Eisenhower's bangs, Nancy Reagan's favorite color (red), Hillary Rodham Clinton's headband (and senatorial pantsuits) and, of course, Jackie Kennedy's everything. Every woman wanted to be Jackie, to wear her pillbox hats, trim A-line dresses and chic suits.