Dancers

A sport that is very well known for eating disorders is dance. Dancers are notorious for not eating and it’s seen commonly throughout all dancers usually.

According to Eating disorder Hope’s website, ballet dancers tend to have a higher risk of developing an eating disorder then any other athlete. This is because they believe that being thinner will affect their dance. They believe that they will look prettier dancing if they’re smaller.

Ballet dancing is similar to gymnastics in the matter that they both show off based on appearance. It makes sense that both the sports have high risks of eating disorders since people are placed to a standard to look a certain way for people because they are showing off appearances.

A section in the Eating Disorder Hope website says, “dancers are often required to wear tight, revealing attire and are constantly performing in front of mirrors, an audience, etc,”. This gives the dancers a thought that they have to look skinny since they are in front of an audience in clothing that is tighter.

https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/bulimia-nervosa-ballet-dancers

I bring up the volleyball player that I first talked about because one of the reasons why she developed an eating disorder was because she was in spandex in front of a group of people. This is common in not only dancers but in almost every sport that is a little more revealing.

One of my earlier blog posts was about why athlete’s feel like they need to look a certain way and I answered it saying it’s because society tells them that they have to look skinny and fit. I feel like dancers are answering that question pretty well since they show off their body because dance is all about how the body moves. Of course, they’re going to think about whether they look fat or not because there is probably one person that they are performing in front of that will mention their weight. This is what makes it so hard for dancers to overcome their eating disorder because they have to overcome what people are thinking.

The article above says that they should “gain control” over the situation which is a hard thing to do but if people help dancers do it then maybe they wouldn’t be as scared to try and gain control.