Body Image Issues Present in Dancers
By Mariah Rollwagen
Photo By Crystal Rollwagen
My personal story involves many struggles with body image that I continue to deal with daily and many of those issues stemmed largely from my dance experiences. The constant need to fit into small and revealing costumes makes young girls feel the need to slim down. I used to limit my food intake to lose weight, despite the large amounts of physical activity I was required to perform throughout the week including at home workouts, technique classes, and rehearsals. At the age of 16, I was 5’5” and weighed around 105 pounds, due to my body image issues and a need to look my best in dance competitions. The body positive movement has helped many young girls, as well as dancers, feel more confident in a healthy body. The dance industry and many other entertainment industries should continue working toward body acceptance and should focus more toward the talent than image.
Many art forms include some sort of medium; sculptures could
use clay, musicians use instruments, and dancers use their own bodies or the
bodies of others. This puts an extra pressure on dancers to maintain an aesthetically
pleasing bodily form. This impact has started to create body image issues among dancers starting younger and younger. The emphasis on extreme thinness
in dancers started as early as the 1950’s when famous ballet choreographer, George Balanchine, emphasized the need for ballerinas to have the perfect
body and perpetuated many dancers to develop eating disorders.
The dance world has worked hard to perpetuate the idea that
health and well being is more important than an ideal body type, but there is
still a long way to go. Many auditions will cut dancers for their looks,
whether it be hair color, size, height, and many other reasons beyond talent.
My personal story involves many struggles with body image that I continue to deal with daily and many of those issues stemmed largely from my dance experiences. The constant need to fit into small and revealing costumes makes young girls feel the need to slim down. I used to limit my food intake to lose weight, despite the large amounts of physical activity I was required to perform throughout the week including at home workouts, technique classes, and rehearsals. At the age of 16, I was 5’5” and weighed around 105 pounds, due to my body image issues and a need to look my best in dance competitions. The body positive movement has helped many young girls, as well as dancers, feel more confident in a healthy body. The dance industry and many other entertainment industries should continue working toward body acceptance and should focus more toward the talent than image.
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