Sophie Dahl's Slim 'Betrayal'

Sophie Dahl's Slim 'Betrayal'

Sophie Dahl thinks her weight loss left people feeling "betrayed".

The former supermodel - who is married to singer Jamie Cullum - was famously one of the few fuller-figured faces on the catwalk but in recent years has shed the pounds, going from a size 16 to a 10, and admits she was unprepared for people's reactions.

She said: "People definitely said I had betrayed them. Strangers felt very open to comment about it. When one is a projection of a collective thought, it's very odd."

Despite her change in size and the scrutiny her appearance has received, Sophie insists she has never dieted extremely or had an unhealthy relationship with food.

She insisted: "My relationship with food has always been uncomplicated. How I view my body hasn't been uncomplicated, but that was because my body was discussed and dissected at great length in a very public forum, when I was at a formative age. My relationship with food was never affected."

The 32-year-old beauty is preparing to launch her own TV cooking show in the UK and has already blasted criticism that she is "copying" celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

She added: "I'm not copying Nigella, not at all. There is a real compulsion in this country to put women against one another, particularly in cooking.

"I don't know why it has become some big competition. I think we have very different styles of cooking and our shows are very stylistically different."