Female ballet dancers are highly vulnerable to the development of eating disorders (Abraham, 1996; Anshel, 2004; Ringham, Klump, Kaye, Stone, Libman, Stowe et al., 2006; Thomas, Keel, & Heatherton, 2005), and appear to be at higher risk than other female athletes (Macleod, 1998). They are generally 10-12% below ideal body weight and engage in dieting to maintain this weight (Kaufman, Warren, Dominguez, Wang, Heymsfield, & Pierson, 2002). As a special type of athlete, ballet dancers face some unique health risks related to conflicts among appearance, strength, endurance, and optimal health status (Krasnow, 2005). Competing goals between aesthetics and performance may incur an increased risk for disordered eating behaviors and cognitive disturbances in ballet dancers, along with psychosocial stressors specific to the dance profession (Krasnow, 2005). The majority of studies on ballet dancers reveal symptoms of eating disorder psychopathology, including body dissatisfaction and preoccupation with food and weight (Montanari & Zietkiewicz, 2000; Ringham et al., 2006; Szmuckler, Eisler, Gillies, & Hayward, 1985) and perfectionism (Anshel, 2004). Ballet dancers are under constant pressure to maintain low body weight and they engage in behaviors to control their weight (Abraham, 1996). Vaisman, Voet, Akvis, & Sive-Ner (1996) demonstrated that the dance school atmosphere in classical ballet promotes striving for thinness to an abnormal extent. Modern dance, on the other hand, places more emphasis on individual interpretation of movement and improvisation (Clabaugh & Morling, 2004). Thus, modern dancers have much more freedom from the constraints, restrictions, and formalities of ballet (Clabaugh & Morling, 2004), both physically and artistically. While most studies indicate that disordered eating patterns are common among ballet dancers (Anshel, 2004; Montanari & Zietkeiwicz, 2000; Ringham et al., 2006; Thomas et al., 2005), little is known about this phenomenon in modern dancers.
