Humiliating weigh-ins at ballet schools: Dancers tell of eating disorder battles

Some girls would faint from hunger. One was congratulated on her gastroenteritis weight loss. A teenage boy was told his fat was hanging over his underwear and to 'sort it'. They crash-dieted on watermelon or chewing gum. But now, New Zealand ballet dancers speak out about an unhealthy world of peer pressure, bullying and eating disorders.

Clara, the young star of The Nutcracker, is the role that has launched a thousand ballet careers. When a teenage Sarah Burrows was plucked from anonymity to dance the role in a Royal New Zealand Ballet production of Tchaikovsky's classical masterpiece, it should have been the start of something beautiful.

Growing up in Matamata in the Waikato, Sarah had danced since she was five years old. At 18 she went to train fulltime at a dance academy – and it was then her anxiety kicked in.

The ballet school would hold regular weigh-ins which were "tormenting"; many dancers would starve themselves for the day leading into them. Dancers were then told how much weight they were to lose. "I was told to lose five kilos, off my current 50 kilos. At one point, I came back from a terrible bout of gastroenteritis, down to 46 kilos, and was told this was how I should look all the time."

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Burrows is now a Christchurch health professional and Pilates instructor, but at 35, she is still bruised by her experience as a young dancer. Weight and body image, she says, were a greater obsession at the dance school than was technique.

Ballet is one of the most complete artforms. There is beauty in every nuance, every element. In the choreography, the set, the music, the movement, the extraordinary physicality – and, of course, in the dancers' bodies. But behind the fixed smiles of many dancers is a battle with body image shaped by an inflexible industry.

Sarah Burrows began an unhealthy diet complemented by the use of thermogenic tablets. Developing hip pain, she continued to eat little and take anti-inflammatory tablets that led to a stomach ulcer and the beginning of her anxiety attacks.

"I would say that most of the girls would have had an eating issue. People were constantly on some diet," she recalls. "I'm 35 years old, and I still think my arms are fat, after years of being told my arms were too short and fat."

'PATHOLOGICAL CRUELTY OF BALLET'

The brutal world of the bigger ballet companies has sometimes been as evocative a narrative as the plots danced on their stages - and body shape has always been a dark feature of that narrative.

The world-famous Bolshoi Ballet was notorious for creating a dog-eat-dog world where 200 dancers competed for just a few roles. Soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko was jailed for six years for organising an acid attack on the company's artistic director, Sergei Filin.

One prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova, revealed how she would eat just one apple a day and 450g of porridge.

At just size 8, she was rejected by the Bolshoi as too big. Her body was her enemy, she mourned, saying she wished it was smaller.

Former ballerina Anastasia Volochkova won an unfair dismissal case against the Bolshoi, after losing her job for being too "heavy". In a Russian radio interview, she described "the pathological cruelty of the ballet world".

Italian dancer Mariafrancesca Garritano publicly accused La Scala and its academy of turning a blind eye to the culture of eating disorders causing infertility among her fellow dancers.

On the other side of the ocean, Boston Ballet was taken to court, accused of contributing to 22-year-old dancer Heidi Guenther's death from anorexia.

And a complaint was filed with California's Human Rights Commission alleging the San Francisco Ballet school had discriminated against an eight-year-old girl on the grounds of body type.

But in recent years, ballet schools have been much more vigilant about excessive thinness. And the Royal NZ Ballet was said to be more forgiving than the European ballet companies.

Yet, Sarah Burrows reveals, many of her clients are ballet dancers. She says the pressure to lose weight remains, and it is dangerous to their health and wellbeing. Young women, is particular, risk lifelong health problems such as bone density and reproduction issues. "Dancers need education on the correct food to fuel for energy, muscles repair, and support. They need education on how to fuel their bodies for their sport."

She believes dancers still suffer unrelenting, unforgivable pressure to lose weight. In New Zealand. Right here, right now.

TEACHERS 'TURNED BLIND EYE' WHEN GIRLS FAINTED

Like Burrows, Melissa Lodge was just five when she took up dancing. She moved to Australia to pursue her career, where she experienced the same regime that Burrows suffered in New Zealand: From the public weigh-ins to high praise for eating next to nothing, her mind became warped about what it was to be a healthy woman.

When she moved back to New Zealand for dance school she was told it was a good thing to skip breakfast. "Girls would sometimes faint and it was never a big deal. It was like the teachers just turned a blind eye to it all."

By age 15, Lodge had developed an eating disorder was referred to a child mental heath professional.

"One time we were rehearsing for a big show and it had been a few days since I had anything to eat, I had fainted in the changing room and when someone told the teacher she was annoyed, told me to drink some water and get on stage."

Within two years she had become so unwell she had to give up ballet. Her promising career was over at age 17.

"I was never satisfied with how I looked. Instead of my love for dance it just became about losing weight and avoiding food. All that was on my mind was the number of calories in things or the number of calories I could burn doing exercise. Dancing wasn't fun any more because instead of enjoying being in the moment all I could concentrate on was the way my body looked in the mirror.'

Now a 26-year-old psychology student, Lodge has struggled off and on with anorexia and her guilt around food has remained. "Unfortunately I can never un-learn the calories in every food."

Lodge and others in this article have not singled out particular ballet schools. There are many dance academies in New Zealand; boys in Billy Elliott leotards; girls in tutus with wide-eyed dreams of being called on to step up to the role of Clara. Like Sarah Burrows before them.

The bigger institutions insist times have changed.

'NO ONE WANTS TOOTHPICK DANCERS'

"The dance industry is definitely safe," Canterbury Ballet director Taisia Missevich insists. "The industry itself is not to blame for the bad press it gets regarding eating disorders."

Missevich portrays dance teachers and directors who care about their young charges. That message is echoed by New Zealand School of Dance director Garry Trinder. Yes, they acknowledge, there are dancers who develop eating disorders – but that is despite the best efforts of the ballet schools.

Professional advice is always on offer for students at Canterbury Ballet, Missevich says, and they encourage healthy eating and body image. There is no weight requirement for dancers, but they do need a balanced musculature. "The physical requirements emphasise tone and the flexibility and mobility of certain joints, not weight."

If a dancer is seen to be developing an eating disorder they will be referred to their parents at first instance, then to a medical professional and barred from dancing until further progress is made.

"Sadly," Missevich admits, "there are still some teachers who haven't changed with the times and believe that if a dancer is skeletal then she is attractive and will achieve.

"The truth is no one wants to look at toothpick-like dancers who lack vibrancy."

Trinder says the NZ School of Dance imposes no weight requirements for dancers. "The school's policy is to promote positive attitudes towards weight, healthy eating and body image at all times." 

A sports nutritionist is employed to educate and guide students' toward a healthy diet for dancers to keep "best physical form" to pursue a dance career.

Trinder has heard of dancers developing eating disorders during their time at dance schools in New Zealand, he says, but not particularly at his. 

He puts the blame elsewhere: he suggests young men and women are exposed to "ideal" body types through mainstream and social media.

'WHEN YOU SMILE YOU'RE UGLY'

David Ashby was a Kiwi teenager who enjoyed fish and chips and hanging with his mates. Nowadays he won't touch anything deep fried and regrets ruining relationships because of his own insecurities.

After leaving Christ's College at just 16, Ashby became a fulltime ballet student at the now-closed International Dance Academy in Christchurch. Young and impressionable, he says he was told to lose weight, stop smiling and get a haircut.

Dancers like Ashby are very clear about where their eating disorders started. The dance academy memories are raw.

At the start of the school term he undertook the "dreaded fat check" by his ballet school teachers. He was told his fat was hanging over his underwear and he was to "sort it out". 

"David, darling," a teacher told him. "You are a good looking boy, but when you smile you're ugly – so don't smile'."

Ashby is now 30 but he still struggles to smile in public.

He moved to Melbourne to continue his training. Students there avoided drinking water lest it bloat their muscles. "Just eat watermelon," was their motto.

Ashby was told he would never be buff and he was best to be a thin and lean dancer, which would require him to lose a lot of weight. With no guidance from the school, he proceeded to eat tuna, carrots, smoke cigarettes and drink diet drinks. This earned him favour from teachers and he was cast in the best roles on stage.

He'd realised his dreams – and had never been in worse shape. Thin and unhappy, he returned home to New Zealand for the holidays where after one look at him, his family became concerned for his wellbeing.

"My body, my face my hands – every part of me. Years of being told how one should look, and witnessing people I loved going down the path of the eating disorders. Looking at myself in a mirror everyday all day for the majority of my youth had left me stuffed."

At his lowest point, Ashby could not have a single mirror in his house. "I couldn't stand looking at myself. I was angry, I hated myself."

Ashby is now a successful actor and teacher, back in Melbourne. And it is there, in the Australian state of Victoria, that dance organisations are taking little bourrée steps towards combating eating disorders. For them, transparency is key.

Lisa Pavane, director of The Australian Ballet School, has announced a partnership with the state's Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders. "The School takes the view that, like risk of physical injury, risk of an eating disorder is an aspect of elite vocational ballet training that needs to be openly acknowledged and well managed by the School."

SHAPING 'THE PERFECT BALLET GIRL'

"I really think it is crucial and a key responsibility for ballet schools to have high quality mental health support in place for all students. This should be an absolute given." 

That's the view of Alice Stevenson, 32, who is training as a clinical psychologist. She wants to help men and women improve their own body image. And like the other men and women quoted in this article, she speaks from bitter experience

Stevenson was six-years-old when she picked up her first pair of ballet shoes. Coming from a background of deprivation and family violence, it was ballet that built her up, that provided her friends and security. And it was ballet that broke her down again, setting her up for a lifelong struggle with body dysmorphia. "It is a really dark, secret side to such a beautiful art form."

She was often laughed at by the more wealthy pupils for not having that brand new tutu or having to work to afford those expensive ballet shoes. She didn't want to be different, she wanted to fit in and she began shaping herself into the perfect "ballet girl". And at 11, at ballet school in Whangarei, Stevenson was told by one of her teachers she could become professional.

She moved to Christchurch to study dance and says this is when she first felt the pressure to become thinner in order to succeed. Eating disorders became the norm around her and weight loss was "catchy" – so much that Stevenson developed bulimia. "At ballet school I was ripped apart. I was told I was too big on probably a daily basis."

She would be so hungry from starving herself that she would binge eat, then throw up in the shower to hide it from her family, she said. "My weight went down to about 45kg I think at the lowest. By seventh form the girls at school would comment that they could see the bones in my back."

Stevenson would spend three hours at a time in the gym until she could see the weight drop on the scales. She cut whole food groups from her diet and lived on a diet of carrots, salads and lollies to help with energy levels she lacked from malnutrition. 

"I went to a costume fitting once and after being measured my ballet school director told the costume lady to bring it in a few centimetres – if I did not fit that tutu by production time my understudy would take my part."

Like the other dancers, ill health forced her into early retirement. And now, she wants to warn others of the dangers. She believes the ballet industry is toxic.

"I struggled to keep my dignity on a daily basis, but still, nothing would deter me from my ballet obsession."

TALES FROM THE BARRE

* Emily Shields, 24, grew up dancing ballet in Christchurch before moving to Sydney five years ago. There, she says, the environment was much worse.

"I felt like an outcast and was ashamed of my womanly features such as my 'larger than A cup' bust, shapely legs and round bum. When I danced my ribs didn't show and my calf muscles didn't bulge every time I moved. I was immediately not classed as an 'athletic' dancer and it rattled my confidence in classes.

"I doubted myself so much because the teachers with industry jobs knew who in the class was more hireable based on looks and they made it obvious by focusing on them more and not spending time on others."

When she finally lost weight after training for 40 hours a week, her dance director of the school told her: "You look great, I can't even see any cellulite on you."

"I was thrilled. All my calorie counting and restricted meals had paid off. But since then, I see how backwards the 'compliment' was. How does having cellulite affect the way I dance?"

* Millie Bourke started dancing when she was four-years-old and fell in love with it. She was dancing for 10 years before the harsh reality of the industry killed her spirit and she gave it up. When she was 14 and going through puberty she put on weight and says that's when criticism from her dancing peers and teachers began.

"I was constantly self conscious and compared myself with all the other girls. I could barely look in the mirror without crying. I went to a winter school and overheard other girls saying my thighs were too fat for ballet; a teacher told me I couldn't do arabesques because of my back fat and my head sat too forward on my neck.

"I found myself in the back rows, hiding. I blamed all my failures on my size."

Eventually it led to her giving ballet up at 17 and coming to terms with her weight being regular outside of the dance world, she says. "I still think about dancing on a daily basis. It's a shame my passion for ballet and loving my body couldn't come hand-in-hand."

* Nelson's Claire Graham, 19, says one of the most damaging experiences to her confidence happened at a dance competition in Blenheim when she was 11.

She and all the dancers were publicly ranked before an audience from smallest to largest. She was largest and although one of the better dancers she missed out on a placing.

"I think after that experience, the little comments about my size and 'landing like an elephant' or having to 'cut down on the McDonalds' – which I didn't even eat, I've been vegetarian since 10 – all those little things that I used to push through started to eat away at me."

WHERE TO GET HELP:

* Lifeline (open 24/7) - 0800 543 354

* Depression Helpline (open 24/7) - 0800 111 757

* Healthline (open 24/7) - 0800 611 116

* Samaritans (open 24/7) - 0800 726 666

* Suicide Crisis Helpline (open 24/7) - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO). This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.

* Youthline (open 24/7) - 0800 376 633. You can also text 234 for free between 8am and midnight, or email talk@youthline.co.nz