Ballet Dancer Health, Blood Sugar Balance, Depression And Hypoglycemia

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Young ballet dancers often drop comments in a casual way, referring to their self esteem problems. Whether it is a body image issue, a perfection issue, a weight control problem, or a slightly depressed lack of energy issue, they either don’t come out and say it, or they really cannot articulate what the problem is. Recently when I started reading about hypoglycemia, and blood sugar balance, I began to relate its symptoms to many of the statements I have heard.

I became more interested in hypoglycemia and its sometimes subtle symptoms, due to a conversation I had with a non-dancer, a talented performer, in another field. This person has performed in many countries, is pushed forward by all her teachers, and yet cannot accept the accolades from teachers or peers, or the enthusiasm of fans, because – she just can’t.

The lack of self-esteem in this person confuses me. A person who won the number one state award for acting while still in high school? That’s like winning the ballet competition performing the Blue Bird or Swan Lake pas de deux.

Disorder eating is most broadly defined as, the behavior that results in an emotional outcome by controlling what you eat. This does not necessarily mean anorexia or bulimia, but may refer to a practice of self control or self approval in regards to the food you eat, the caloric content, and this does not only apply to dancers.

It may involve an extreme situation like a teenager who insists on being a vegan, in which I have personally witnessed the result causing stress fractures in this dancer who still thought that she was going to be able to get stronger on pointe and have a professional career in ballet, while she looked at her x-rays.

Recently I took a look at hypoglycemia and its symptoms. Now this is tricky. Symptoms are almost unique to the individual. But the dominating symptoms, according to what I have read, are:

  • sadness
  • self criticism
  • hopelessness
  • feelings of absolutely no self worth
  • periodic complete failure of energy, dizziness, mental confusion
  • thoughts of suicide, though not enough energy to think further than that

Hypoglycemia is…drum roll…too low blood sugar!

It is caused by a nutritional deficiency of protein, or just lack of food.

Hypoglycemia does not mean you are diabetic, or almost diabetic. More concisely called Reactive Hypoglycemia, this is a condition that results from a poor diet, or not eating often enough for whatever reason. Or eating too many carbohydrates with not enough protein.

The most common recommendation for hypoglycemics, is to eat some protein every two hours.

Also, I would like to mention the rule of nutritionists, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why? Proteins set your brain chemicals for the day. Skip those, and your brain chemicals will not be properly functioning until the next day IF you happen to eat protein for breakfast.

Dance parents reading this – how often does your dancing daughter or dancing son run out of the house and skip breakfast because they slept late?

And what will they eat when they get to the food dispensers at school? Or will they go hungry until they get to the school cafeteria for lunch? This is a miserable situation for a non-athlete student, not to mention a ballet dancer or any other athlete.

And later when they run off to their ballet academy? Are you one of those ballet parents who have to suffer hearing “I’m not that good”…”I’m not good enough”… and worse? While the ballet teacher is telling you your child should be aiming higher – auditioning for professional summer intensives?

Confused yet? Let me give you some relief. Hypoglycemia-without-Diabetes at http://benjimester.hubpages.com is an eye-opening discussion. It is worth reading the entire thread.

Personally, I believe that hypoglycemia is caused by:

  • lack of education about nutrition
  • processed, fast-food, frozen food products
  • not enough time to serve fresh food indicating what nutritious food is
  • addiction to sugar (nutritional ignorance)
  • ignorance about grains, GMO grains, glutin and GMO sugars

And, sadly much more I cannot cover here. BUT please, if your dancing child or anyone in your family has any energy or depression issues – but not severe enough to consult your physician (who probably will not have any nutritional education) or therapist, please investigate hypoglycemia. It is an insidious condition – but can be reversed with a good diet!

It is not that difficult. I would love to never hear from again, a ballet dancer, or any other kind of performing artist, who feels morose, depressed, sad, or hopeless about their talent or potential, when they have no idea where all this negativity comes from. And they skip meals, eat nutrition-free snacks, and have low blood sugar…

I would love to never hear from again, a sad, depressed ballet parent, whose amazing talented child is failing, sinking, not even treading water, suffering from body image problems, or self esteem problems, and contemplating quitting ballet, or even suicide. For the want of nutritional balance.

This may take a lot of extra food preparation for ballet parents! If you’re still reading this post, I bet you’re O.K. with that.

Logistics At Wal-Mart

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Many people wonder how Wal-Mart is able to charge such low prices and continue to make a profit. There are several factors in their business model that contribute to this ability, but a big one is their ability to adapt to an ever-changing global marketplace. Some criticize Wal-Mart’s efforts to deliver to their customers a quality product at low prices, but in reality, Wal-Mart has been able to deliver low prices by being efficient. This efficiency is present in several areas but one of the most important places is how they are able to manufacture products all over the world and get them to retail outlets, which are also all over the world. This ability requires a flawless logistical system that allows product to be shipped anywhere at a moments notice.

One of the keys to Wal-Mart’s effective logistical system is the flexibility that it has when choosing suppliers. When Wal-Mart negotiates with suppliers and the suppliers know that Wal-Mart will only pay the most competitive prices. This is because it is very easy for them to find another supplier of that particular material with a lower price and very few logistical problems. This gives Wal-Mart a huge amount of leverage when dealing with suppliers. If a particular supplier knows that a company has found a lower price, it will lower its price accordingly. However, if the supplier also knows that it will be incredibly difficult for the company to make the proper adjustments to ensure a smooth transition to a different supplier, then they will be less inclined to lower their price as much. This is not how existing suppliers deal with Wal-Mart; when they see that Wal-Mart has found a supplier that will give them a lower price, the current suppliers lower their prices accordingly. They know that Wal-Mart’s logistical system can handle transition seamlessly and therefore they gain no additional leverage since it won’t be difficult or costly for Wal-Mart to choose another supplier.

Another reason that Wal-Mart’s prices are so competitive is because they buy in such large quantities that transportation from one end of the supply chain to another is not as costly for additional units. This aspect of the logistical system does not come from skill or expertise it simply comes from the sheer size of the company, but this is still a factor. Wal-Mart buys so many supplies from different places throughout the world, that they have the luxury of using bigger trucks and using less fuel to go back and forth. Also if by chance they have to use shipping services to transport material from one location to another, Wal-Mart will give them so much business that they will get huge discounts.

The logistical system that Wal-Mart uses is so effective because it is so flexible. This is why Wal-Mart is able to offer things much cheaper than other companies can. Wal-Mart has a reputation for being able to offer these things in a cheap manner because of low employee pay and human rights violations but this is simply not the case.

The Noble M10 Sports Car

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The Noble M10 – A close look at this sports car including performance, technical data, features, comparing rivals, history, used prices

from Classic to Modern

BACKGROUND

Sports car builder Noble was established in 1999 in Leeds by Lee Noble, and specialised in fast, mid-engined, rear wheel drive cars.

Prior to launching Noble, he was involved in the design of other sports cars, with brand names such as Ultima and Ascari.

The body and chassis of every car was produced by Hi-Tech Automotive in South Africa on the same assembly lines as Superformance rolling chassis for such distinctive cars as replica Cobras.

Upon completion of the body shell, it was then shipped to the new Noble factory near Leicester, at which point the engine and gearbox were added, and the finished car was tested.

It was designated the M10 since it was the tenth design by Lee Noble.

As the designer of his own cars, the basic philosophy was to begin with a lightweight space frame, to which was added a powerful engine and a sporty aerodynamic body.

His design encompassed a mid-engine format which would provide good handling characteristics.

In terms of marketing, he pitched the price of each car such that it would be positioned in the affordable sector of the sports car market, and so reach a wide audience.

He resigned from Noble in 2008, and went on to create a new venture.

THE CAR

The Noble M10 was the first car to be designed and produced by the company.

It was launched in 1999 with a price tag of around $30,000 and, interestingly, he built the first two units in a garage situated near his home.

Since the car was superseded a year later by the more impressive M12, few of the M10’s were actually sold since potential customers changed their allegiance to the forthcoming model.

The M10 was a two seater, only available as a convertible, with a composite fibreglass body and chassis, and a corresponding curb weight of only 960 kg.

It was powered by a Ford Duratec 2.5 litre, 24 valve, V6 engine that developed 168 bhp, and 162 ft/lbs of torque.

Linked to a five speed manual gearbox, it produced a top speed of 135 mph, with a 0-60 mph time of 5.9 secs.

It was fitted with 10 inch vented disc brakes all round.

Following the launch of the M10, Toyota introduced their MR2 convertible that same year which, outwardly, looked very similar to the M10. Technical data:

COMPETITION

Some of the typical competitors of the Noble M10 included the following: Lotus Elise, Porsche Boxter, BMW Z4, and Mercedes SLK 350. Noble performance:

This concludes my Noble M10 Sports Car Review.