ick

Woke up this morning with my throat kind of sore again and sinuses hurting. Yes, it's time to go to the doctor. My right tonsil has not been normal size for weeks.

Unamused.

what a crock

She wanted to counteract the stereotype that ballet dancers are all tall, thin and reluctant to eat. "You can't rehearse and train and perform eight hours a day without eating," Hymes says. "Dancers are not dropping dead left and right of anorexia, or there would be no dance."
...

You could say it's easy for Hymes to stay in shape: She's 5 feet tall and weighs less than 100 pounds. But over the years, and during a 15-year professional career, she's had her share of problems with her height and weight.

...

Her teacher in Connecticut advised her, "Lose 10 pounds if you want to be a dancer." She did, but cautiously. "Since I loved food, I knew I had to do it a certain way -- I didn't want to develop any bad eating habits. I just made sure all the calories I consumed were doing me some good."

Fortunately, after training with the School of American Ballet, Hymes was hired by the Ohio Ballet, which didn't have New York's absolute passion for tall, thin dancers. Hymes was happy with her weight, she felt healthy, enjoyed eating a variety of foods and never felt deprived.
...

"Dancers are just like everybody else, except they get more exercise and it's extremely disciplined -- that's why they look the way they do," Hymes says. Dancers need energy, stamina and muscle, no matter how slim and ethereal they look from the audience.

First of all, many, many dancers are sick with anorexia and bulimia. Just because they are not "dropping dead" does not mean they are not sick and will not have life-long problems. A choreographer I worked with knew that two of his dancers were bulimic, and another had abused speed to stay thin. This is in a company of about 15 people. Ballet teachers across the country kick out children from their classes for being "fat", not to mention they refuse to train adults above a certain size. I've seen girls nearly pass-out during dance classes from not eating. I cannot believe she is actually trying to sell this pile of crap as the truth.

Second of all, a 5 foot woman weighing less than 100lbs is tiny and very "acceptable" for most professional ballet companies. What a load of shit to claim that this dancer had to dance somewhere free of the "tall and thin" madate. She was ableto dance professionally largely because she was under 100lbs. She could have gotten work in almost any major ballet company given she was trained well enough. This is not the case for a 150 or 200lb dancer. The article makes it sound like it is some radical move of self-acceptance to accept one's body as thin enough at less than 100lbs, Please.

Third, the notion that dancers "look" a certain way is asinine. The notion that any dancer above 100 lbs is undisciplined is asinine as well. At my absolute thinnest and smallest, when I was actively either bulimic or anorexic, I only could get down to 140 lbs and a size 6 (at 5'4) and I still would have been too big for professional dance companies. I hate, hate, hate it when professional dancers/choreographers act like they are size-accepting and body-loving because they tolerate size 6 women in their companies. They won't even let size 8 women in (and, yes, this is true). This is not size-acceptance and it makes me sick that it is being painted as such. They make it sound like it is so cool and edgy that not all their dancers are a size 2--some are a size four, and mayebe ::gasp:: a szie 6. Show me a size 12 or a size 22 dancer in one of their companies and then I will be interested. Show me a dancer in any one of the mainstream companies mentioned in this article who has a single female dancer with even a hint of a belly and I wil be interested. I have yet to see it and I am sickened that the dance world thinks a 100lb adult female is on the "large" end of the acceptibility scale.

Barf.