Eating Disorders and Dance
EATING DISORDERS AND DANCE
Observation Paper on
Eating Disorders and Dance
On June 14, 2006 an observation of a Weber County School District drill team took place during their summer training session. The team consisted of 24 adolescent, high school girls; each girl differed from the next by way of hair color, skin color, height and weight along with other character traits. When the group first walked into the dance room for their morning training session they all had on the same outfits. As a group, according to the K. Lamar, they are required to wear body forming dance wear in an attempt to unify the team by not allowing any of the girls to standout from other team members and to make sure their body line is correct (personal communication, June 14, 2007). From first glance it seemed that the team was unified as a whole but during closer observation one thing was drastically different in some of the girls. A fair majority of the girls looked as if they were at a healthy weight for a particular height; however there was a few that did look severely underweight. The girls that appeared underweight seemed to form a group of their own within the drill team and were often singled out by other team members as being too skinny ' or unhealthy. Additionally, the adolescent girls that were underweight were made fun of and talked about by other members of the team, thus leading them to form their own clique within the drill team. The girls that formed their own clique never confronted the other members of the team but rather kept to themselves. All of these observations and its findings could exhibit signs of eating disorders which is leading to group separation and self isolation within the drill team.
Eating Disorders: Eating disorders are one of the key health issues facing young women today. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women 's Health currently 1-4% of all young women in the United States are
Observation Paper on
Eating Disorders and Dance
On June 14, 2006 an observation of a Weber County School District drill team took place during their summer training session. The team consisted of 24 adolescent, high school girls; each girl differed from the next by way of hair color, skin color, height and weight along with other character traits. When the group first walked into the dance room for their morning training session they all had on the same outfits. As a group, according to the K. Lamar, they are required to wear body forming dance wear in an attempt to unify the team by not allowing any of the girls to standout from other team members and to make sure their body line is correct (personal communication, June 14, 2007). From first glance it seemed that the team was unified as a whole but during closer observation one thing was drastically different in some of the girls. A fair majority of the girls looked as if they were at a healthy weight for a particular height; however there was a few that did look severely underweight. The girls that appeared underweight seemed to form a group of their own within the drill team and were often singled out by other team members as being too skinny ' or unhealthy. Additionally, the adolescent girls that were underweight were made fun of and talked about by other members of the team, thus leading them to form their own clique within the drill team. The girls that formed their own clique never confronted the other members of the team but rather kept to themselves. All of these observations and its findings could exhibit signs of eating disorders which is leading to group separation and self isolation within the drill team.
Eating Disorders: Eating disorders are one of the key health issues facing young women today. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women 's Health currently 1-4% of all young women in the United States are
References: Eating Disorder. Retrieved June 24, 2006 from http://www.4woman.gov/owh/pub/factsheets/eatingdis.htm Golden, N (2003). Keep Kids Healthy. Retrieved June 18, 2006 from http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/adolescent/adolescentproblems/eatingdisorders.html Rees, Jane Mitchell, PhD, RD, CD (2006) Eating Disorders during Adolescence: Nutritional Problems and Interventions (2006) Signs and Symptoms of and Eating Disorder Something Fishy (2006) Signs and Symptoms of an Eating Disorder. Retrieved June 19, 2006 from http://www.something-fishy.org/isf/signssymptoms.php (2006) The Incidence Rate of Anorexia in Ballet Dancers Vaschenko, Maryna (2005). Eating Disorders in Adolescent Gilrs: What Educators Should Know. Delta Kappa Gamma Bullentin, Vol. 71 (Issue 2), p18-21. Retrieved June 20, 2006 from http://80-web7.epnet.com.hal.weber.edu