Body shaming at ballet school

This world just gets worse ,a teacher said one of the pupils couldn’t eat a donut,it’s on BBC website,not sure how to post a link

 

BBC News - Ex-dancers describe body-shaming at top ballet schools
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66720433

 

Thanks Baldrik,poor lasses made to be anorexic,teachers living in past with those values

 

This is tu-tu much.

 

I'm sorry but if you want to be a ballet dancer you can't go round munching donuts. That's nothing to do with eating disorders or body image etc. It's a harsh reality. Same with jockeys etc.

 

It's been the same ever since ballet was invented. It's not news. The BBC must be scratching round for any news at all today

 

Spot on.

 

Must keep them on their toes on slow news days.

 

Just to be clear, you think it's fine to bully teenagers into having eating disorders?

 

Bella Emburg did alright.

 

The amount of calories they burn per day when in full training, they very much can afford an occasional treat. The problem being it would probably be the only thing they eat that day. Or week. Or maybe be purged.

The culture of only employing painfully thin size 4-6 girls professionally needs to change.

It wasn’t quite so bad years ago, the dancers were always slim of course but not all with visible rib cages, and it needs to improve again in the future. My nanna danced on stage in London as a kid in the forties and fifties, (ballet and background dancing in musicals, her claim to fame is the show she did with a young Julie Andrews).

Anyway, she used to come back home to donny from the show runs after a couple of months or so a full stone and a half heavier; they’d train in the morning, have schooling from a tutor, then be taken for lunch which most days was a huge dollop of buttery mash in a big bowl of tomato soup, unless there was a matinee that day.

They were encouraged to eat a fair bit to have the strength for eight shows a week, and with it still being rationed they got little meat or fish for protein. Lots of carbs, fruit and veg, cake and custard, and the odd egg.

She said the cast of girls in the various shows were from age 7/8 to mid twenties, and maintains the adult girls were usually quite tall and looked slender but were often a size ten to twelve, especially by the end of the runs. You wouldn’t have a size twelve woman in a ballet on a west end stage now. I’m not convinced they did then to be honest but she reckons so. She went back down after she’d married and had her first kid, my uncle, to see a show with one of her old mates in, in the early sixties. Was invited back stage in the morning warm up before the afternoon show. Even by then there was pressure to be thin, the girls often swallowed cotton wool and drank water so it expanded in a bid to stave off hunger when they were starving themselves. My nanna was appalled, never went to another show even when invited by an old director. I doubt much has changed in the following 60 years either.

I’m not suggesting the industry embraces obesity or anything - plenty of careers you need to be very fit and healthy - but the pressure on already very slim young people, often in years of puberty with fluctuating hormone levels etc in these schools, is dangerous.

My youngest goes to dance class, she’s never going to be good enough for ballet school I wouldn’t think but she is certainly also not destined to be size six either. She isn’t my size but she’s pretty robust. Her other hobby is rugby union at the same club as her brother - I imagine when she’s old enough to be in a full team she’s more likely to be a front row than a winger.

Her dance school are great, nothing but love and encouragement: and she’s certainly not the biggest girl there either. Encouraging health and fitness, educating on nutrition and strength, great. Thinly veiled jibes and pressure to be painfully thin - that’s wrong and dangerous. Life threatening potentially.

 

My Grandma performed as a dancer on stage at the same time as Julie Andrews too. She was from Ferrybridge and also went down to London.

 

As with many professional sports/stage or media roles, there is already pressure on kids before they even turn up to practice.

Parents are the worst culprits of it in my opinion, as they encourage their kids to be the fittest, fastest, slimmest, most muscular etc at ages where it should all be about having fun. People talk about the horse racing industry being cruel as horses are forced to run/jump etc but we do it to our own children in the name of sport/what’s good for our kids. And then as soon as they show any kind of promise it’s all about how they can get to “the next level”. Extra sessions, 1-2-1s, diet and nutrition advice generally given by blokes with a beer gut like me.

And if you think football/sports dads are bad, take any of your daughters/granddaughters to ballet/stage school and many of the parents there are horrific. Snide comments, putting other kids down to make their child seem better, forming little cliques to make sure their child associates with the ones likely to be successful…

It’s awful.

 

I think many sports are like that now, they have dieticians and the like to gain maximum output ( fitness, strength etc on all sorts of athletes) as the saying goes healthy body healthy mind, haven't read the article above so can't comment on the OP

 

As a parent of a child that spent the best part of a decade doing competitive gymnastics, the kids themselves were generally very supportive of each other and pushed each other to improve. However, the parents on the other hand were the cause of a lot of problems. One set of parents got their kids kicked out of 2-3 clubs after complaining about a coach mistreating their kids, when one was an evil twin who was called out for misbehaving and another was completely innocent. At least a couple of mums tried flirting with the married, 50+ coach, to get their kids better treatment. Others pushed their kids to practice at home leading to injury - long-term, life-affecting injury like damaged knees or ankles needing operations.

Banning the parents from watching was usually a good move.

 

Has to be one of the greatest sit coms ever.

 

Aye it’s up there with the best but my number 1 has to be Fawlty Towers.
As funny today as it was almost 50 years ago.

 

Looks like Penguin.