Dieting is a competitive sport in the fashion world, says one former editor

Former Mademoiselle editor Valerie Frankel recently published a book describing -- in vivid detail -- her time in the fashion industry, and it's not what you would call glamorous. Thin Is The New Happy provides a graphic insight into the bizarre, weight-obsessed world of fashion magazines, courtesy of one of it's former key players. According to Frankel, "We'd sit in our offices smoking cigarette after cigarette and talking about who ate what, the calorie counts of our lunches, the latest dieting trends, who on the staff looked heavy." Yikes.

Some other tidbits from the book?

• She used to do 'hillocks' of cocaine -- in the office, no less -- to keep the numbers on the scale down.

• New employees were told to 'represent the magazine in their personal appearance.' The hidden message? Get thin or get out.
• Each employee had a dieting quirk -- one ate nothing but grapes and jelly beans, while another drank laxative tea twice a day.
• Behind her back, Frankel admits that bosses knew her as a 'frizzy-haired, badly dressed, big-boobed Jew.'
  

And over at The Daily Mail, columnist and former Marie Claire editor Liz Jones is weighing in on these claims, insisting they are absolutely believable and calling the offices of a fashion magazine a 'hotbed of neuroses.' You can read her full response here.

Surprising? Not really -- ever since The Devil Wears Prada, I think many of us had just assumed this went on. Still, it's a bit disconcerting. I'm just glad I don't live in that world.

Your thoughts?