I'd been advised since ever I could remember by doctors to gain weight. I was always also advised by dance teachers, directors, and a few audience members to lose weight. What I'd found is that dancers are not the only ones who experience this health vs image dilemma, but I found it at a maddening level.
So, check this out...one dance company used to have a height/weight chart that was deemed acceptable for dancers to abide by. At 4'11", the company had as acceptable weights to be between 85-102 pounds. When I'd be at the hospital or at the doctors, they'd tell me that 102 pounds is at the low end and I was actually consistently underweight. Then they'd point to my blood pressure, my thyroid, liver function, digestive issues as evidence.
So then I'd go back to the show directors and coaches and teachers and they'd tell me that doctors aren't trying to get me a job on stage. So, I have to make a choice as to what I need to do....be healthy, or be employed.
Everybody knew that starving oneself is a health risk, but when an audience expects ballerinas to be thin and sinewy, and not muscular or "bulky", you run into a problem of how to manage a dance company that relies on the ability of the dancers to work while staying marginally healthy.
I remember once I went in to the doctor's office as a check up. He asked me, "How are you feeling?" I'd tell him I felt great. But then I said I was upset that I gained 10 pounds and what that would mean for my career. But he was really happy that I'd gained weight and kept telling me that I was supposed to weigh that much. And yet I was still depressed.
I know. It's crazy. I live with an extremely skewed body image.