Dance Teachers Pressure Their Dancers To Be Thin

 Dying to Be Thin

Spending day after day in the dance studio trying to prefect every last move, young dancers learn to ignore the sore muscles and bleeding feet. Dance takes full dedication and girls will do anything to achieve their dream, including starving themselves. “My motivation was dance and only dance.  It wasn’t a tragedy that compelled me to be thin.  It was a dream that lost its way” (Hommel). This thought is a common thread through all competitive dancers minds as they strive to be the best. Dance instructors push students to the edge to form their bodies into the mold of a typical ballerina. The intense pressure from dance instructors to be thin is one of the prime causes of eating disorders in girls. 

Young girls are surrounded by extremely thin models, actresses, and professional ballerinas, while society continues to push the importance of eating right and exercising. Diet and exercise ads pollute television commercials telling girls that they need to look a certain way. Research shows that “there are worrying indications that girls as young as six are now more aware and more anxious about the way they look than ever before” (Moorhead). This is especially evident for young impressionable dancers. They idolize ballerinas and look up to them in the hopes that one day they will be up on that stage. According to a dance medicine specialist, Jan Plastino,

Dancers have to be thin because that’s the aesthetic.  They are much thinner than they were 20 years ago.  What it’s done is take the kid that’s not naturally lean and do drastic things to try to look that way. . . They don’t need to be that thin, but they get thinner and thinner and thinner (Valdeopino).  

The incredible amount of stress on young dancers causes many girls to develop an eating disorder. According to Jennifer Hagman, “The incidence for anorexia is one-in-one-hundred in the general population; in ballet, it’s seven in one-hundred. That is seven times increased risk for having anorexia if you’re in ballet” (Valdespino). This astounding statistic truly shows how common eating disorders are within the dance world. 

In the award winning movie, Black Swan, Nina Sayers is a ballerina who struggles with her weight. Thomas Leroy is the director of the ballet company who makes Nina feel inferior, leading to her need to make herself throw up. In this picture you can see through Nina’s expression how she feels about her body.

One pattern of how eating disorders are depicted is shown by women looking in the mirror thinking they look one way but truly look another. In the second picture you can see how this young girl has a distorted view of how she looks. This troubling image has caused many girls to take the extreme and could even end in death. 

One dancer from the Boston Ballet gave up her life in the hopes of landing a coveted contract with the Boston Ballet. Heidi Guenther’s mother said her daughter would not receive a contract until after she lost weight. Struggling with anorexia for years she eventually died at the age of 22 from malnutrition (Medrek). 

Even though most ballet companies aren’t allowed to force their dancers to meet a certain weight requirement, dance instructors continue to recommend that girls watch their weight. Betty Oliphant from the Toronto National Ballet school says, “The staff is not allowed to discuss weight with the students.  Some of them do, however, when my back’s turned. . . . We allow students to go through their period of puppy fat, if they get to fat, they stay in the school, but we don’t allow them to perform” (Kelly). So not only are girls encouraged to be smaller but they might not even get the opportunity to perform. Dreaming to take on ballet prefessionally these young girls strive to look like the girls they see onstage and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

I had an interesting interview with junior in high school, who has struggled with an eating disorder. The stories she shared were shocking. In dance class they are only allowed to wear tight fitting clothes. While students attempted to complete workouts some teachers would laugh at their inability to complete an excercise which took away students motivation to keep going. This incredible pressure from her teachers caused her to take drastic measures. Due to the constant critisim from teachers, she started to see herself differently. “I looked in the mirror and saw someone 3 times the size of the dancer on the screen.” With this mental image of her body she felt uncomfortable wearing the revealing costumes which made her feel like her body is not “good enough” which makes her want to be even smaller. She restricted her diet and would eat in public only to make herself throw up later. Soon after she was taken to treatment but all she could think about was the numerous dance classes she was missing (Anoyomous). 

Lining up at the mirror day after day dancers constantly compare themselves with the girls around them. This mirror acts a a reminder of the extreme competition within each dance class. Even though the cookie cutter ballerina is somewhat stick-like, it is unhealthy and impossible for some girls. Most dancers allow their teachers to tear down their self esteem in the hopes that one day they will accomplish their dreams. Dancers need to be better informed about the lasting effects of eating disorders, while dance teachers need to help their students by encouraging them to stay healthy by eating nutritional foods. 

Works Cited

Anonymous. Personal Interview. 16 Nov. 2011.

Hommel, Tania.  “Starving a girl’s Dream.”  The Toronto Star. 4 Feb.  1999:  n.  pag.  Lexis Nexis Academic. Web.  11 Nov. 2011.

Kelly, Deirdre.  “Eating Disorders Risk for dancers.”  The Globe and Mail (Canada).  29 Mar. 1986:  D2.  Lexis Nexis Academic. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.

Medrek, T.J.  “Mom to Sue Boston Ballet over dancers’ death.”  The Boston Herald.  22 Sept. 2000: .001. Lexis Nexis Academic. Web.  11 Nov. 2011.

Moorhead, Joanna.  “Dying to be Thin?”  The Independent.  24 Jan.  2006:  36.  Lexis Nexis Academic. Web.  11 Nov. 2011.

Valdespino, Anne.  “Thin worshipers dance on their graves.”  The Orange County Register. 20 Apr.  1989:  Dol.  Lexis Nexis Academic. Web.  11 Nov. 2011.