Per STEROID NATION, the STAR-NEWS (N.C.), alerts us to a book that examines the use of performance enhancing drugs in college cheerleading.

Author Lisa Torgovnick is a former contributor to JANE who now writes for the NEW YORK TIMES. She spent an entire season following cheerleaders in competition. While much of the book has to do with the boring documenting of cheer culture, it also reports on cheerleaders’ usage of PEDs.

Like college and pro sports, varsity cheerleading is developing a substance-abuse problem. Male cheerleaders bulk up on steroids so they can heft more weight. (Contrary to stereotype, Torgovnick writes, cheer-guys are no more likely to be gay than football linemen. Most of them tend toward “weight-lifting, beer-guzzling and head-banging.”)

“Flyers,” under pressure to stay light - and maintain the usual unrealistic “Barbie” standards of beauty - take a pharmacy of drugs including, occasionally, cocaine. Except for the cocaine, though, almost all this abuse is perfectly legitimate, since the NCAA rates cheerleading as an “activity” rather than a “sport.”

Begin the “Bring it On” quote derby: “I want you to think of what you ate today. Got it? Now cut that in half, this is called a diet, people, everyone start one today!”