Like relationships with people, the way one relates to food can be affirming, nurturing, sustaining and sensually gratifying. Or it can be depriving, traumatizing, abusive, and even life-threatening. When eating has gone awry it represents a complex response to psychological, interpersonal and cultural experience. Particularly difficult for women, eating problems are rapidly becoming more prevalent among men. This is complicated by the fact that dancers, both men and women, are burdened with contradictory messages and aesthetic imperatives about food and the body.
Dancers attempt to regulate their relationship with food in many ways.
Dancers need a relationship with food that sustains life and supplies them with nutrition and energy to function maximally as dance artists. They may have chosen to value a body shape and size which fits in with established aesthetic norms. Food needs to be a sensual, life-affirming presence in our lives. Let's think about J., who is well-versed in nutrition and good eating. She would try to punish herself for the binge by skipping subsequent meals, depriving herself of food and increasing her exercise activities beyond her daily dance class.