Professional Dancers And Eating Disorders Essay

Throughout this research paper the question, “what causes eating disorders in professional dancers?” is asked to help conduct research to find specific information pertaining this topic. This opens up a lot of areas of expertise relating to professional dancers and what they have to go through on an everyday basis. This also opens up topics relating mental and physical health of a professional dancer, and how that can affect bigger aspects which can lead to eating disorders or disordered eating. Case studies on eating disorders in professional dancers can help show eating disorders in dancers in real life situations which further supports the claim that eating disorders can be caused by body image issues and the constant pressure of perfection.
Professional dancers spend most hours of the day …show more content…
There are various factors that can pertain to body image issues, such as the tools used in class and even the teachers. Melissa Padham and Imogen Aujla published an article in the Journal of Dance Medicine and Science about the relationship between passion and the psychological well being of professional dancers. According to their studies, there are two types of passion which are harmonious and obsessive. Although, there is not a clear view as to which type of passion dancers are, there are signs related to them that are found in dancers. When it comes to dancers and their well being, Padham and Aujla state that the three aspects that are commonly related are disordered eating, self esteem, and perfectionism. In a study done by Druss and Silverman, they found eating disorders can be more prevalent in classical ballet dancers because of the extreme dedication they have to dance, although knowing they have a five percent chance of actually becoming a professional