Why Are Dancers So Vulnerable When It Comes to Eating Disorders?

Copélia Mainardi

As a body-centered discipline, dance imposes exacting technical demands and strict control of dancers’ appearance, making them particularly vulnerable to eating disorders. When it comes to these issues, dancers are not all created equal.

The dancer’s body – in addition to being a medium of artistic expression – is also an object of observation, evaluation, and control. Traditional aesthetic and weight requirements for professional performers come at a high price: dancers are ten times more likely to develop eating disorders than the rest of the population. In 2014, a study estimated the prevalence of eating disorders in the sector at 12%, a figure that reached 16% among ballet dancers. In comparison, “only” 1.5% of the non-dancing population is affected, representing approximately one million people in France. 

Characterized by a “significant and lasting disordered eating pattern,” eating disorders are psychiatric pathologies, some of which are extremely severe, and they constitute a serious public health problem. Anorexia and bulimia are the best-known manifestations of disordered eating, but the Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental and Psychiatric Disorders lists a much wider range. A combination of different factors is at the source of this phenomenon. While the most important causes may be genetic, neurobiological, or experiential, being a victim of assault or harassment (which in turn causes low self-esteem) can also be a factor. A weight-loss diet or a brutal trauma (bereavement, a breakup...) can also be a trigger event”. As for maintenance factors, these can include the valorization of weight loss, or the illusion of omnipotence brought about by a sensation of self-control. 

By fostering fantasies about an “ideal body,” which can lead to a depreciation of one’s own physique, now deemed inferior and unsatisfactory, being part of the dance world in a serious way constitutes a major risk factor. “This discipline combines the internalization of an ideal of thinness, the fact that dancers learn extreme self-control and endurance in the face of suffering, and often attracts people who are attracted to this requirement,” analyzes Hélène Marquié, a researcher in dance and gender studies and a professor at the University of Paris 8.

Marion Borgne, a psychotherapist in the health unit at the Paris Opera, notes that the issue of weight inevitably comes up in a dancer’s career. “It can arise in the course of their daily routine, or in particular situations such as after a pregnancy,” she explains. “Injuries also represent periods when dancers are particularly vulnerable psychologically, when the powerlessness they feel can be compensated for by a need for control, particularly over food.”

“In the 1950’s, famous dancers like Margot Fonteyn or Claude Bessy didn’t have such skinny bodies” Hélène Marquié

These concerns, however, do not necessarily lead to the development of an eating disorder. Borgne prefers to speak of a continuum of “disordered eating attitudes and behaviors” that can lead to full-blown eating disorders. Sports physician Xavière Barreau, who coordinates the health unit at the Paris Opera, also speaks of the need to be vigilant regarding the causes and symptoms of “RED syndrome”: a deficit in energy intake (previously known as the “female athlete’s triad”) leading to several physical dysfunctions, like hormonal imbalances. This deficiency is often caused by poor management of food intake, which is regularly relegated to the background of an already busy schedule,” analyzes the health professional. “But it can also be the symptom of a voluntary deprivation of food, which then means there is an underlying eating disorder there.”

Could certain types of dance be more conducive than others to maintaining these risk factors? A certain French academic culture has certainly pushed to the extreme the cult of a “perfect” body in classical dance. But this isn’t true for all ballet companies and it hasn’t always been the case. Marquié cites companies such as the Harlem Dance Theater in the United States, for example, which showcase women’s bodies that are “slim, without being skinny,” and with more visible muscles.

For Marquié, the problem lies less in aesthetics than in the way teachers and choreographers use them to justify problematic attitudes. “In the 1950’s, famous dancers like Margot Fonteyn or Claude Bessy didn’t have such skinny bodies,” she points out. Marquié underlines a paradox: the fantasy of the Romantic ballerina, inherited from the 19th century – an ethereal creature never meant to be embodied, that now tends to be a reality and an actual model.

To understand the high prevalence of eating disorders in the dance world, we also need to consider the question of gender. Subjected to far greater social pressure than men, women are perpetually confronted with contradictory injunctions. “The ideal of thinness is very quickly associated with much-hoped-for success and concerns them specifically: what companies look for in female dancers are beautiful ‘lines’, ‘slim waists’ and ‘fragility’,” says Borgne. “This is much less the case with men, where muscle mass must be developed and shown, in particular to be able to perform lifts.”

Girls also tend to be less valued for their individuality from the outset. “From their very first classes, little girls are asked to do what everyone else does and not to stand out, whereas we always tend to value a boy’s originality,” points out Marquié, who denounces a “continuum of pedagogical mistreatment”. “We tend to believe that in the dance world, which is a very feminine field, there is no discrimination, when in fact this is far from being the case,” she analyzes, denouncing the glass ceiling that is visible in the choice of directors for institutions, how funding is attributed for shows, and programming decisions. “And after the age of 30 or 35, women are quickly sidelined from leading roles, whereas men can perform in various ways much longer, relying on presence rather than technique...”.

But dance can also be a way of healing. Marquié, who suffered from anorexia herself, experienced this first-hand, thanks in particular to a ballet teacher. “Dance isn’t all suffering,” she stresses. “It’s also a way of owning one’s full power, of letting go through expression and creation, of refusing to be assigned to the little thing you become as you lose weight.” A deleterious environment or a therapeutic practice: isn’t dance the art of stretching between opposite directions?

Copélia Mainardi is a journalist. She has worked with several big publications such as Télérama, Libération, Le Monde diplomatique and France Culture, reporting, investigating and making documentaries. She studied French literature and then worked in France Culture, the “28 minutes” program on Arte and the culture department of Marianne. She follows closely what is happening on the cultural scene, in the performing arts and literature.

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