The rate of injury is comparable to that of athletes who participate in contact sports. The average time away from work for an injured dancer was 10.5 days, with the length of time ranging from one day to 87 days. The purpose of the study, published in the October issue of the journal Anxiety Stress and Coping, was to determine the rate of injury and then try and determine if there are any factors that predict which dancers are more likely to be injured. What we found, says Dr. Ronald Smith, a University of Washington psychology professor and lead author of the study, was that 23 percent of the dancers suffered 70 percent of the injuries. What that tells us is that some dancers are indeed more susceptible to getting hurt.
Dancers don t have a reputation for being particularly healthy.
A procession of books by former dancers in recent years has catalogued the stresses of the profession the constant pressure to perform, to lose weight, to compete for roles. Eating disorders are common, chronic pain is pretty much a fact of the job, and burnout is high.