The Weight of the Barre: One Ballerina's Experience With Disordered Eating
A huge thank you to my friend and professional ballerina, Sarah Tryon, for writing about her journey with her relationship with food.
Ballet has a reputation for thin athletes- and it’s well earned. In my era growing up, we weren’t explicitly told to reduce our eating, but as teenagers we noticed the pattern: the skinny girls got roles. To my teenage mind, that was the answer. So, I began to reduce my intake:
Breakfast: Three dates, seven almonds, and three Brazil nuts as my molecular biology nutritionist taught that was the number of nuts and dates I should consume daily.
Lunch: One cup of soup (before four hours of training)
Dinner: Tuna salad with a slice of cheese on a rice cake.
I was very into the anti-inflammatory diet as a 13–17-year-old. I refused to eat pasta, meat, nightshades, tomatoes, or milk products. The result was severe anemia and fainting spells throughout high school along with stress fractures in my right foot and spine that both would not heal for years. I was constantly napping and missing days of school since I was too dizzy to function. I grew up in one of the most world-renowned boarding ballet schools, so school to me was my academic education and ballet training.
Was I strong? No, I was one of the weakest ballet students, since I was not feeding myself properly. Advancing never occurred and I was always behind my age group. When I arrived in New York City, I was met with a teacher who would say things to the effect of “be the chopsticks holding the dumplings, ladies. Not the dumplings.” Or “you can have a piece of cake as you look properly svelte” or “lose ten pounds if you want directors to take you seriously”. (I am 5’4 and normally 98-104 lbs naturally mind you).
This mentality took a huge turn when I accepted a job offer in Denver. What many people don’t realize is that you must increase the amount of carbohydrates you eat to maintain performance since your body is working harder to sustain itself due to the lack of oxygen. I certainly didn’t. By my second year in the company my anemia came back full force. I was cramping, seeing black spots, and had to drop out of a round of shows due to increased weakness. This is when my entire diet changed. I became a friend of carbs, almost a fiend for them really, bagel or sandwich for breakfast, pasta or steak for dinner almost every night. Potatoes in all forms all the time. I started to follow what I naturally craved; I want a burger before the show tonight? Awesome. I’m an athlete who requires fast bursts of energy and needs to be on my feet for three hours during a show. Post show is pasta and a protein shake so my muscles can regenerate to repeat it all again twice tomorrow. I also went through the fads of taking supplements, but post-recovery food serves a purpose. I wanted to build a healthy relationship with food and listen to what my body needs, not to restrict or supplement it with processed bars. I am a huge advocate for minimally processed foods; empty calories do not fuel or sustain your body properly.
Next week, Sarah dives into what how she fuels her body today.
