Brittany Adams
CO300
Section 1
Public Argument
What do you think of when you hear “professional ballerina”? Elegant young women, with undeniable grace, effortlessness, and beauty? If I said the words “depression, self-deprecation, and starvation”, would you think of those same girls in sparkling tutus and tiaras smiling down at you from the stage? Unfortunately, all of these descriptors can become intertwined in the world of professional ballet. The qualities of a prima ballerina are only achieved through very hard work, hours and hours of rehearsals involving critique from directors, and personal goals that must be met. When the right aesthetic isn’t reached, the stress can be unbearable. There are a number of reasons that can cause a dancer to be less than perfect, the main being that she is human. But dancers tend to have perfectionist personalities that promote “nit-picking”. The first aspect of one’s dancing to receive criticism is often a ballerina’s body. She might ask herself: Has she trained her muscles correctly in to the long, lean look so often admired by outsiders? Has she kept her weight low enough for her positions to be truly realized by an audience? Has she stretched her feet enough, is she light enough to lift, does she look too large in her costume? While many audiences wouldn’t think twice about whom they are looking at, a dancer puts in countless hours of passing self-judgment to achieve what the audience sees in a performance. Perfectionism, it may seem, is a required trait, but it is the trait that leads to emotional problems that can interfere with anyone’s quality of life. Depression is surprisingly prevalent in the dance world. I have been dancing for sixteen years and have experienced depression when what I call my “dance life” is most stressful. Along with my depression comes weight fluctuation. I have saw in friends, that they could become very insecure about their bodies, so much so that they strictly controlled every calorie. I noticed some large personality changes when they pulled the reigns so tight on their self control. From there, I wondered what links there were between dancers, depression, and eating disorders. I found so few articles or videos that discussed all three; I did research to connect my own dots. Unfortunately, my recourses are limited. Graduate students with an interest in eating disorders, may however find that this topic in many ways is a door un-opened.
“Depression in dancers: nobody’s perfect–but try to tell that to an overachiever” an article from a 2003 issue of Dance Magazine, proclaims “According to Dr. Sidney Blatt, a psychologist specializing in depression at Yale University, the same qualities that create significant achievement can also lead to self destruction, depending on one’s perfectionistic tendencies.” Many dancers know that eating disorders are a possibility in their future and many embrace it. But a lot of girls take it too lightly, as if it is an item on a “to-do list” to get them to the top. They do not realize the emotional stressors of an eating disorders and how it may mentally and physically inhibit them to be happy and function normally. What might a dancer struggling for control over her environment turn to when she is told her look or even specifically her weight is preventing an outstanding performance? Her body; eating disorders have a clear opening to arise in this situation. The two psychological illnesses of depression and disordered eating fuel one another in a way the general public and even prospective dancers might overlook. It is imperative that dancers (especially women) and supporters of girls hoping to become dancers be educated about the signs of both disorders. No Prima Ballerina spot is worth some of the life-long consequences functioning in the dance world with either of these problems.
Depression is an ailment of both the mind and body. The effects come forth in all aspects one can imagine: eating, sleeping, working, relationships, and how a person thinks about himself/herself. According to allaboutdepression.com, 20-25% of women will experience a serious depression at least once in their lifetimes. This can be caused by “illness, stressful life events, a decrease in exposure to sunlight, substance abuse, and burnout.” An especially hard hitting statement: “Psychological makeup can also lead to depression, especially in high achievers.” Keeping these factors in mind, its not hard to connect a young ballerina to a mild form of depression. Someone in this position should be aware of the symptoms of depression. Most commonly, these include at least two of the following symptoms: Either overeating or lack of appetite; Sleeping to much or having difficulty sleeping, fatigue, lack of energy, poor self-esteem, difficulty with concentration or decision making, or feeling hopeless. All of these symptoms can be cause by the dance world alone. Poor self-esteem runs rampant in a dance studio, where competition is fierce and being the “best’ is an unattainable goal. Over-eating and lack of appetite falls in to a gray area. This can either be a (often not unwelcome) symptom of a depressed dancer, or the basis of an eating disorder. An article about depression in athletes on livestrong.com notes that, “Societal projections and expectations make it challenging for athletes to seek mental health help.” Replace the word “athlete” with dancers and the statement couldn’t be more true. Why should a dancer shy away from showing weaknesses such as a major or minor depressive disorder? That “perfectionist personality” kicks right in when a dancer is told they are less than what they should be. Mark H. Anshel dove deep in to the subject of dancers and eating disorders with his report in the June 2004 issue of the Journal of Sports Behavior. His article, “Sources of Disordered Eating Patterns Between Ballet Dancers and Non-dancers” sought to compare dancers and non-dancers and determine characteristic differences between the two that would promote eating disorders. I found much of his research to be helpful in defining the psyche of a dancer. Furthermore, the specific stressors Anshel found in dancers with eating disorders ran parallel to my research on athletes and depression. The report mentions a study by Dross and Silverman (1979): “The students revealed an acute sensitivity to criticism, an intense drive toward achieving personal goals, and have a need for high personal control over eating and other sources of pleasure.”
It was difficult to find information on eating disorders that did not imply a psychological issue other than weight control was taking place. In fact, an eating disorder is defined most simply as having “extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues”-simply not eating without side effects basically doesn’t happen. Symptoms of anorexia include: self esteemed based on body image; obsession with calories, fat grams, and nutrition; dieting despite being thin, pretending to eat or lying about eating; strange and secretive rituals. These factors result in dramatic weight loss, fixation on and distortion of body image, along with the denial of being too thin. Dancers have motivation to reach some painfully low measurements. George Balanchine has been credited with setting the standards for the ballet body in the West. He preferred the “anorexic” look, with long limbs, little or no fat deposits, and absence of hips and breasts. Through my research, I came across a few statistics that may further punctuate exactly how unhealthy this kind of body is to attain.
It might be the right time to ask exactly how an eating disorder is triggered. In the dance world, triggers for depression and triggers for eating disorders are often one in the same. It is highly unlikely that when a dancer is told she is overweight that it is a welcome criticism. It is a blow to the self esteem (a cause of depression), heightened by the perfectionist personality, which is prone to depression. These women are then are faced with the challenge of taking their body past its lowest healthy weight, to something abnormal. And as stated by Mark H. Anshel, a normal diet and ballet class alone cannot give you that body. He found that a classical ballet class does not burn calories efficiently enough: A dancer burned only about 200 per hour in comparison to 500 per hour for a sport like swimming. Therefore, if a dancer needs to be thin, she has to do it in a way other than exercise. That is a very important piece of data to keep in mind, and it plays in to the downward spiral of an eating disorder. The author was inspired to further study a group of young female dancers at a training school and compared their results with non-dancers:
What I found to be rightfully noted was that in the study Anshel conducted, was that his greatest obstacle was the self-reporting. It is most likely that, “due to the secretive nature of eating disorders, dancers may be reluctant to respond truthfully to the questionnaires.” Furthermore, “It is possible that individuals who choose not to participate have different eating attitudes and behaviors than volunteers do.” If this is the case, it only makes the already shocking data appear more grim.
Physically and technically, dance requires same amount of strength as many sports, but the actual act of dancing may not give them the aesthetic required to be a professional, hence, disordered eating to maintain the look. Dancers who don’t progress quickly enough towards the ideal body could be rejected from their school or company-or not allowed in to begin with. While it’s possible that many girls are predisposed biologically to eating disorders, the rates of anorexia, bulimia, and disordered eating are too high in dance to blame it on that alone. The dance environment is a contained subculture. “Pressures to conform to predetermined and stereotypical expectations by the dancer’s significant others, and places them at risk for eating disorders. This is likely due to their preoccupation with weight control” (Hausenblas & Carron, 1999).
A detailed depiction of the events leading a girl named Heidi Geunther to her death two was an especially alarming piece of evidence. While no article states that she was battling depression, it is my view that she should have been examined for symptoms of depression. A former member of the junior ensemble at Boston Ballet, she had been encouraged to lose five pounds. She lost the weight, and was promoted to the senior company the next year and began to lose more weight. She weighed 100 pounds and was 5’ 3” at her death. The article states that the student was encouraged a.) Not to lose any more weight, and b.) to be careful not to get too thin…even after she was promoted. In my opinion, the indications here are hard to ignore. Ms. Geunther was rewarded for behaviors which caused her to be thinner, and in correlation with the mindset of a dancer, it is clear that she tried to push the boundaries as far as they could go. At a young age, being told she was too over-weight to reach her goals, especially when she was already healthy, may have pushed her towards depression. Looking at the causes of depression I mentioned earlier, specific events can often trigger a mild case of depression. If we chose to assume that Geunther had perfectionistic tendencies that motivated her, it is possible that weight became an obsession for this young girl. While it appears that she was consulted about losing too much weight, I would love to ask her teachers and peers if she had been through counseling. Even so, it saddens me to know that a girl with this kind of drive may have easily lied or pretended she was feeling cheerful or “OK” about her dance life, even if she wasn’t, so that she could pursue her goals. This tricky catch in the link between eating disorders, dancers, and depression is what should be investigated and brought in to the open.
“Not being good enough” is a disparage when you spend the majority of your time working to be “good enough” for someone else. A dancer knows that basically her only option is to control what she eats. She hardly has time or energy for an extra workout and diet pills hardly work. Extreme measures are considered by dancers looking to make a change, and the word “extreme” hardly has the same meaning in the dance world as it does almost anywhere else. Dancers can be motivated by a desire to achieve perfection because “they practice exercises ritualistically to stop thinking, feeling, to reduce their bodies to the barest minimum of bone and muscle and to deny themselves all other pleasures in order to achieve that goal. They dare to hope for some brief time to become perfect” (Anshel, p. 21). It is interesting that the connections between both of the psychological disorders discussed in this paper and dancers has been drawn, but little has been done to connect the dots between all three. The evidence is out there, and ultimately, future lives can be saved through research and education. It is impossible to predict whether or not the dance world will ever universally accept the “healthy” look of an average female-this no one person has control over. But what can be helped are future generations of girls who only know they want to dance and are not properly educated about what may happen along the path to perfection.
Eating Disorders & Dancers 