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.

I want to get right to the point with this article and explore why I think so many fathers are so totally opposed to their sons taking ballet and where the American prejudice against male dancers comes from. I am not trying to offend anyone with this article, but at the same time I have caught so much flack and encountered so much ignorance as a male dancer myself that what I have to say may irritate some. I hope this will be taken in an open-minded way as this is a real problem and I seek to explain what the real, ground-level reasons are for it.

Ever since I can remember I heard my friends giggle or make jokes at any man wearing tights dancing on stage. In the days long before YouTube and Cable TV, movies might be shown in school as part of a history or civilization class and would inevitably touch on the arts and then at some point show ballet. As soon as the male dancer appeared, here came the jokes and snickers. Since I had done ballet myself since the age of 4 this always struck a real nerve with me but most of the time no one else knew I took ballet so I would just sit quietly and listen to the snide remarks. I must say that while this is not at all the same thing as someone being made fun of or joked about because of their race, I do think I know something of that same feeling because I always loved ballet and would never not do it but hearing people disparage something I knew to be so great and that was a part of me really hurt in a way that leaves you feeling totally powerless to deal with it.

Much later in life I finally gained the perspective to look back on my childhood and also hear the comments being made anew and make some insights into where this prejudice comes from. What follows is my analysis of the prejudice against male ballet dancers.

1) Smooth or graceful movement confused with moving “like a girl”.

Many, many men don’t ever fully appreciate the value of being able to have a wide range of motion for the body and the ability to move separate parts of it at the same time and smoothly so as to maintain balance. Practically all the sports anyone has watched on TV since the 1950’s shows athletes very highly conditioned to move in straight lines as fast or powerfully as possible. Male ballet dancers MUST move in a different way because the goal of a dancer is to maintain balance rather than impart a large amount of energy into a ball or into another person’s body to knock them down. A great many confuse this with ballet making men move like girls. Quite apart from this, ballet actually makes men move a lot like someone practicing Tai Chi or Kung Fu or especially Yoga. Add to this the idea that ballet is a pure creative exercise set to music, not something intended to hurt or render another person unconscious, and you arrive at the basis for one of the big misconceptions of ballet regarding men. Curiously this is also the reason why many men find ballet extremely challenging to do and gain a grudging respect for it later in life if they ever take a class their daughter might be in during an open house type event.

2) Boys don’t wear tights

Let’s examine this one. When I warned that I may offend some people with this article, this part is exactly what I was referring to. I don’t know how else to approach this, so here it goes: Every male athlete wears tights or far less. Swimmers? You wear lycra speedos. Wrestlers? Seriously, what is that spandex bodytard thing you guys wear? Football? Lycra-spandex cut off tights with some extra padding and a cup. Don’t confuse the shoulder pads and upper jersey with the fact you guys also wear a chopped up version of tights. And, if boys are doing “girly” things when they dance, what do you call getting right behind a Center’s rear end and putting your hands almost in his crotch before a snap of the ball?

3) My son will be gay if he takes ballet

Now I am a flaming heterosexual if you ask my wife. I do know many gay guys, but many of the gay guys I know are sports junkies and never ever did any ballet. And as body-built up as they are from pumping iron all the time they’d have as much luck doing ballet as Arnold Schwarzenegger. This one really stumps me to be honest and it comes up a lot as a reason why dads will not let their sons take ballet. Are there gay male dancers? Sure. Are there gay men in every profession including sports? Yes, there are, and again as the football and wrestling examples given above show, if I were a gay man I’d do those sports because then I’d be in direct physical contact with other athletic guys rather than ballet where 99.99% of the time you are dancing with GIRLS! More specifically, you are partnering girls which involves holding them in all kinds of very difficult positions and getting sweat all over yourself from them which no gay man wants because most gay men do not want close contact with women. Honestly I have to say there is just no basis to this prejudice just as there is no basis to any racial prejudice and the answer to any prejudice is education not arguing the prejudice itself because it is founded on ignorance or outright stupidity. To be brutally honest fathers who are too over dominating of their sons run a much greater risk of causing their boys to become gay than any art form including ballet could ever pose.

Now many children – boys and girls – don’t like ballet and won’t take ballet classes and that’s just fine, no activity or sport or art is for everyone. I only hope to spark the checking of the premises for anyone out there who holds to this ignorant prejudice against boys taking ballet because for those that do want to, ballet can be a life-long benefit that will improve mental and physical health, stimulate academic performance, almost guarantee a scholarship to college for any half-way capable male dancer, and foster creativity and imagination for a lifetime. This is hardly something to be opposed to.

Dancing in pointe shoes is a very precise technique – if you want to avoid common dance injuries such as sprained ankles and knee sprains. A young dancer, or an adult ballet beginner, may take two or three years of classes, and be constantly sickling in, or curving the ankle inwards towards the center of the body, or “fishing”, or curving the ankle outwards away from the center of the body. On a working, or presenting leg, where there is no weight on the foot, it really does not matter. But on a supporting leg, the leg that bears the body weight, it certainly does matter – especially if you want to dance in pointe shoes.

Keeping the ankle aligned, meaning neither sickling or curving in, nor curved out, is the ideal situation. But dancers with less arch curve may want to sickle out, or “fish” the ankle curve, on a working, or lifted leg, to show a lovely curve of the foot that a very flexible ankle joint would show. This will not result in a ballet injury, to the foot or the knee.

However, allowing the ankle to sickle in, or out, on a supporting leg, will eventually affect the condition of the foot’s arch muscles, as well as the ligaments supporting the knee joints.

So a properly instructed dance student may choose to “fish” or sickle out a working leg foot, in an extension devant, or an arabesque, to create the ballet aesthetic that ballet teachers, choreographers, and artistic directors look for. This is okay in a presenting leg ballet position.

Most audience members that go to ballet are not looking for this kind of detail, please believe me. PLEASE.

On a supporting foot, whether in toe shoes or on demi-pointe, the ankle must be aligned, that is, in a position a straight line down from the knee joint, in order to protect the tendons and ligaments that keep the structure of the upper leg, knee joint, and lower leg, safely intact.