I'm female, adolescent and a dance student, get me out of here !!!

As girls we are programmed to be pretty and like pretty things. Then we start to learn in school about how historically women had no voice or financial power, so a female’s main agenda was to find a man so that she may possess those things, putting more of an emphasis on physical attraction and beauty. Now, suddenly, we're adolescent and how we look is in competition with how our friends/peers look. We start noticing things we’ve never been concerned about before: Gema's hair is longer, Kirsty's eyes are rounder, Natalie has long legs, and Jade has really smooth skin.

So there we are. Walking from college noticing the beauty in everyone else while creating a running list of everything not-so beautiful about ourselves. Then we throw the bags down and turn on the TV. Lady GAGA! Great. She’s tiny and skinny and wiggling her hips all around.  Change channel. Britain's Next Top Model. Fantastic. Twenty 5’11” girls, wearing perfect clothes over their 117 pounds. Try another channel a re-run of Friends  and Courtney Cox with her skelletal  figure. Even the New York Times said a ballerina starring in The Nutcracker ate “one sugar plum too many” and there's an Oscar in the pipeline for Natalie Portman who shed 20 lbs to play a ballet dancer in her latest film. Sheesh!! The only place a girl is safe anymore is hiding under her covers in bed?!

The pressures of media are the first pressures that a young girl will notice when developing into a young woman. She will be looking through a magazine looking at the new seasons fashion and make up  and see that all of the models have beautiful, little figures. She will see pretty girls with no acne or noticeable birth marks. She will get the impression that the pictures are how people should look when they become older. As a young dancer gets older she will see pictures of the best dancers in the world. They are characterized with narrow hips, little or no fat deposits, slim middle, small breasts, delicate looking arms and their height is short. A young dancer who views this feels that unless she shares these characteristics she will never be the girl in the picture. The media pressure girls to be perfect. They do not display people who are anything but the ideal and this can have a lasting effect on young girls.

I found a quote whilst looking at an article on the effect of the media and social expectation on female body imagery which I think sums up how body imagery is so closely linked to our overall well being ......................

"To lose confidence in one's body is to lose confidence in oneself." - Simone De Beauvoir.

What is predominantly evident in the numerous articles I have researched is that there is still an aesthetic expectation for the female dancer in body shape and size fuelled by the media portrayal of the "perfect" female body .  There are still physical ‘ideals’ and traditional ‘types’ expected in many dance genres as a dancer works in a ‘body-focused’ arena and there are many outside influences which put pressure on dancers to meet the ideals.

The research also indicates the groups most vulnerable to body pressures and media influence and are highest at risk for body image issues and  associated eating disorders and other health issues  are dancers, college students and adolescents.

This immediately struck a chord with me as many of us are all three simultaneously   ..... a dance student at college who is an adolescent............. 3 for the price of 1, wow a real recipie for disaster then?  

Risk Factors

• Dieting at young age or to "make weight" for dance
• Personality factors - drive, perfectionism, determination, competitiveness
• Traumatic experiences with weigh-ins/comments about weight
• Sudden increase in training
• Emotional circumstances - an injury or life experience
• Dance emphasizing leanness - mirrors/tight clothes 
• Dancers who are perfectionist or like to be in control

        

Dancer.  Most people when asked to think of a dancer think immediately of a slender individual. The difference for a dancer from typical media and society pressure to be skinny is that  being thin is a requirement to pursue their careers.

In addition to the pressures of staying thin, dancers are faced with the stress of achieving perfection for performance, often with hours of exercise and rehearsals. There is also sometimes additional pressures from the instructor to maintain and/or lose weight that become unreasonable. Dancers spend so much time looking at themselves in the mirror, criticizing themselves, analyzing their every imperfection and this is bound to have an effect. Because of these additional factors in the life of dancers this can put them at an increased risk of developing body image issues and disordered eating patterns.

 

Adolescent. Adolescence is a time of confusion when teens are often trying to discover who they are as they journey closer to adulthood. They face increased independence, life choices and new friendships and they begin to date and seek acceptance from the opposite sex and their peers.  All of this while their bodies are changing and their hormones are raging! This combined with any additional problems in their family, friends and new relationships can easily put teens at a higher risk.

 

College Student. College students feel pressures to succeed. Additional stress factors include making new friends, moving away from home for the first time, and a new sense of independence and freedom combined with confusion and fear. There is a heavier work load expected of them and late-night studying and cramming, as well as a new sense of having to be responsible for taking care of their own meals in-between it all. This is usually one of the first major turning points they face as young adults, requiring a time of adjustment that can send them into a spin. It is easy to see why Eating Disorders in college students continue to be on the rise.

No wonder dance students many of whom go to vocational colleges at 16 years old (like I did) are extremely vulnerable, they are a manifestation of all the highest risk groups and yet receive very little in the way of education and support in this area of their training.

No wonder so many adolescent dance students are obsessed (and often depressed) about their bodies?

No wonder so many end up with eating disorders?

Reference:

http://www.something-fishy.org/cultural/themedia.php

http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/naigle/index.htm