Dance Diets

Just like any other sport, dancers should have a diet that they follow by.  Dancers have to be able to move their body weight easily and excess weight can cause joint problems and potential sprains and broken bones.









Carbohydrates should account for about 50-65% of a dancers diet. A couple examples of carbs is cereal, pasta, and breads.

Protein should be about 10-15% of a dancers diet.Food such as lean meats, beans, and tofu are ideal.

Surprisingly dancers need fat in their diet which seems contradictory. In reality dancers need about 20-30% of their diet to be fatty foods. This doesn't mean potato chips, this means avacodos, nuts, and seafood.

Fruits and vegetables are essential too. There are many vitamins and minerals in them. Five servings of fruits and vegetables is ideal for a dancer to consume daily.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing a dancer can do is to stay hydrated. During dancing and working out dancers can lose a lot of body fluid. Body fluid regulates body temperature, maintain electrolytes, and maintain circulation.

The most important part is that a dancer eats. There is a lot of pressure in the dance world to stay super skinny and lean. This can lead to serious eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating.

Anorexia nervosa is when a person is barely eating or stops eating completely. This is where a person is underweight and has a huge issue with eating. This is usually because someone with anorexia tries to control things and eating is easy to control. Anorexia nervosa is more common in dancers than the normal population.

Bulimia is where a person eats and then throws up the food that he/she ingested. This is so a person can feel full or when a person wants to taste food, but still wants to lose weight.

Binge eating is when a person will starve themselves for a few days and then consume a high amount of food/calories. Binge eating is harder to detect because the binge eater will be about normal weight.