There and back again: navigating disordered eating and body dysmorphia as a pre-professional ballet dancer

Abstract

My relationship with food was never complicated growing up. My grandma always teased at dinners that I had a ‘hollow leg’ for all that I ate; I was always full of energy, and I could never sit still. A family friend and former dancer recommended ballet as the foundational movement language for dance, and within 10 years, I was awarded a scholarship to a ballet school in the UK at the age of 16. Vocational ballet school was a dramatic shift from the world of dance training I knew. I found myself homesick, far away from the big American family I loved, and one of 17 young men in the year, rather than the only boy in my local school. I struggled to adapt to the pressure I’d put on myself to be successful. At school, I was never personally told to watch my weight, but the heightened, competitive environment of the final year of school created a sensitive environment for all the students. I had a classmate who everyone said was my twin—we were both gifted with high insteps, flexible ankles and hyperextended knees. Before auditions for professional companies, our teacher told him he wouldn’t get a job at his present size—purely conjecture and just his opinion. Since everyone said we were twins, I took that to mean I needed to be thinner as well. What began as ignoring my post-meal sugar cravings started to snowball into very unhealthy habits and a mental battle with my body image. Breakfast was a banana and black coffee; lunch was half a turkey sandwich on thin white bread with more cucumber than turkey; an after-school snack was more coffee and a small pot of yoghurt; and dinner was always 100 g of overcooked chicken or fish, with a portion of …