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How To Fuel Your Dancer
94 Plays2 years ago
Perhaps no field in medicine is fraught with as much misinformation and confusion as nutrition. This directly impacts the dance world, as many restrict the very food elements that fuels a dancer to perform. So Yasi and Steven get into it with two of Yasi's colleagues and mentors from the Sports and Human Performance Nutrition practice group, Michelle Macedonio MS, RDN, LD and Roberta Anding MS, RD/LD, CSSD, CDE. Joining the conversation is former professional dancer and current dietitian-in-training, Astrid Zuluaga-Lopez.
For more information about SHPN, go to https://www.shpndpg.org
To attend the next Food and Nutrition Conference & Expo on October 8-11, 2022, go to https://www.shpndpg.org/shpn-fnce
For more about Athletes and the Arts, go to https://athletesandthearts.com
For more about Astrid, go to https://astridzlg.wixsite.com/mysite
Follow Astrid on Instagram at @undesastrid
Bios:
Michele Macedonio, MS, RD, CSSD, LD: a registered, licensed dietitian and Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics, she is the owner of Nutrition Strategies®, LLC a nutrition consulting business providing nutrition communications, education, and counseling specializing in sports and human performance, cardiovascular health, and wellness. Michele works with physically active people including youth, high school, collegiate, and professional athletes. Her clients have included two professional soccer teams, Xavier University Men’s Basketball team, and the University of Dayton Men’s Basketball team. She served as the Cincinnati Bengals’ team dietitian for eight years and 11 years as team dietitian with the Cincinnati Reds MLB baseball team.
Michele has served as a consultant and spokesperson for members of food and beverage industry, has authored nutrition articles and education materials, book chapters including the 3 rd , 4 th , 5 th and 6 th editions of SCAN Sports Nutrition: A Practice Manual for Professionals, and is co-author of The Athlete’s Guide to Making Weight.
Her professional volunteer and leadership positions have included Editor-in-chief of SCAN’S PULSE, SCAN Chair, Director of Sports-Dietetics USA, SHPN Keynote Sessions Committee, and CDR’s Board Certification Specialty Panel.
Roberta Anding MS, RD/LD, CSSD, CDE: Director of Performance Nutrition at Rice University, Assistant Professor in the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Orthopedic Surgery. She is the former sports dietitian for the 2017 World Champion Houston Astros, Houston Texans NFL franchise, Director of Sports Nutrition at Texas Children’s Hospital, and the Houston Ballet.
Astrid Zuluaga Lopez: Former professional ballet dancer with 20 years of experience in ballet training as a performer and instructor. Trained pre-professionally at Allegro Estudio de Ballet and Miami City Ballet School, and danced professionally in Ballet Nacional de Panama and Arts Ballet Theater of Florida. She is currently a ballet and Pilates instructor at Ballet and Pilates by Victoria and Ellie Paige Dance Company in Houston, Texas. She is also an MS student in Exercise and Sports Nutrition and an RDN-to-be aspiring toward a dietetics career in the fields of dance and athletics.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guests
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Athletes in the Arts podcast hosted by Stephen Karaginas and Yasi Ansari. What is up everyone? This is the Athletes in the Arts podcast. I'm Stephen Karaginas along with my co-host Yasi Ansari.
00:00:28
Speaker
In our episode, we discussed the importance of nutrition for dance and how to navigate challenges that come up regarding body image and food within the dance environment. Our guests today are part of the Sports and Human Performance Nutrition Group, which is a dietetic practice group within the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
00:00:47
Speaker
There's a ton of nutrition information out there today. People are getting nutrition advice from a variety of sources such as TikTok, Instagram, TV, blogs, and more. Now, when it comes to our health, it is important to make sure that the information we take in is from trusted sources who are credentialed and have solid experience.
00:01:07
Speaker
Whether you are a health professional, a parent, or a dancer, we have resources for you that are evidence-based and developed by professionals who have hands-on experience with performing artists.
Michelle's Journey and Resources for Dancers
00:01:20
Speaker
Steve and I had the opportunity to interview registered dietician nutritionists and certified specialists in sports dietetics, Michelle Macedonio and Roberta Anding, and former professional dancer and dietician to be Astrid Zuluaga Lopez. For more information on our speakers and resources, please read through our show notes.
00:01:41
Speaker
Hello, everyone. We are so excited to have you on our show this morning. Michelle, could you tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing and your journey through nutrition? I'm a sports dietician, and I have worked with several professional sport teams. My favorite thing to do has been to work with individual athletes.
00:02:02
Speaker
particularly those that were going from high school to college and college trying to get into the pros. They were the most receptive, I can tell you. I've had a very varied background, but I've been very involved in scan, which preceded shipping.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I had many roles in SCAN. And one of the roles was to represent the DAPG, our Dietetic Practice Group, at the Joint Commission for Sports Medicine and Science. And that's where I met Randy Dick, who began this whole project of athletes and the arts. And we were at a meeting.
00:02:45
Speaker
I brought some of the scan handouts. We had these beautiful fact sheets. They would be a one-page fact sheet, very simple, with ideas on how to address a particular problem. And I shared them with those at Joint Commission. Randy came up to me afterwards and said to me, Michelle, those are so great. Could we use those with athletes and the arts? And that's how it all started.
Roberta's Experience with Adolescent Dancers
00:03:12
Speaker
We then talked and worked with SCAN to modify many of those fact sheets, specifically for performing athletes. Years ago, I worked with the Ohio Ballet, which was based in Akron, Ohio, and I used to work with ballet dancers, so I was really excited about that.
00:03:36
Speaker
I then went back to scan and my colleague said, yes, let's go forward with it. So we did make fact sheets for the athletes in the arts website, made it available. My career got a little busier and I stepped away and Yasi stepped in. So that's my role with athletes in the arts. And right now I try to be a good shipping member and I've made myself available to Roberta
00:04:06
Speaker
to do various things. I just helped her plan a webinar that we had a few months ago. And I'm just sort of the kind of person that you call up and say, will you do it? And nine times out of 10, I will say yes.
00:04:22
Speaker
Michelle, your journey has been so great and you were one of the first people who noticed that there was a need for educational resources for dance. So I am honestly, I know me and other fellow dancers are just so grateful for you stepping up and helping get the ball rolling when it came to athletes in the arts. And that's how you and I got connected too, which is so awesome and so great.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's just been a pleasure getting to connect with you and learn from you and what you started when it came to athletes in the arts. And I just want to clarify that Shippen is called the Sports and Human Performance Nutrition Group. It's a dietetic practice group for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. And we're going to be talking a lot more about some of the resources that Shippen provides to athletes.
Astrid's Transition and Nutrition Guidance
00:05:11
Speaker
Roberta, so the first time I ever met Roberta, I remember it was a fancy conference and I was a dietetics student and I was like waiting in line and getting so excited to meet her because she is just such a force and it is always so great to learn from you too, Roberta. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey in dietetics and where it all began?
00:05:34
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much for the kind words. I'm kind of like Michelle. I've been around for a really long time. I oftentimes call myself a fossil. For the purpose of this group, I was the director of adolescent and sports nutrition at Texas Children's for 17 years and dealt with adolescents that had significant eating disorders. A lot of ballerinas, my boss, Al Hergenrotter,
00:05:59
Speaker
did some of the primary research on calorie needs for ballerinas. And as in that role, I was able to take care of the dancers at the Houston Ballet.
00:06:09
Speaker
for 15 years from level one through the company and then also did all the nutrition work for the summer intensive. And my experience there, again, kind of dovetails off of Michelle's passion for providing education. I found a huge knowledge deficit. The dancers were brilliant and really enthusiastic
00:06:32
Speaker
to get information. The problem is the information they were getting oftentimes might have been from one of their instructors who would say, you know, perfectly normal for you not to have a period your whole entire life. You're a dancer. And so it was a
00:06:47
Speaker
eye-opening for me to think that that was the state of the art in the early 2000s. But that was very exciting for me. And in addition, as just like Michelle, I've taken care of professional teams here in Houston, was with the Houston Texans for 12 years in the Houston Astros for 10. And currently, I'm the director of performance nutrition at Rice University
Nutritionist vs. Registered Dietitian
00:07:09
Speaker
taking care of athletes
00:07:11
Speaker
everywhere, including our cheerleaders, which to me would kind of fall into that category of dance as well. So just a very exciting career. And again, Michelle and I have been close friends for 25 years. And so I think sometimes when you have a shared passion, you find shared friendships that last a lifetime and mutual respect. Indeed.
00:07:34
Speaker
Real quick question. Being the only person who is not spending his career in nutrition, I just want to have a quick question about the differentiation of the terms, like nutritionist, dietician, those kinds of things. What is the difference with those terms? Perfect question. We get it very often. Many a time I've been asked, so did you go to college for this?
00:07:57
Speaker
What a registered dietician is, is someone who has spent a minimum of a bachelor's degree, four year bachelor degree, most of us take four years to do that, in nutrition. And then generally you can do other subjects, but nutrition is the primary focus of your undergraduate degree. And then you go for an internship. For my case, I was in the service for four years, and I did my internship with the public health service. After that,
00:08:26
Speaker
I particularly went and got two master's degrees. At the time, it was not as common to get master's degrees, as now it's becoming much more common. But I just felt the need. And Roberta said, my love for education, my second degree is sports. Health, it's called health sciences education, because I believed just because you know it doesn't mean you can teach it.
00:08:50
Speaker
And so my first master's degrees was in nutrition, and then I got a master's in health sciences education.
00:08:59
Speaker
So for me, it's been educational most of my life, but people like Roberta have done research. Dieticians have to be registered, number one, before you can even get licensed.
Misinformation in Dance Nutrition
00:09:12
Speaker
We are licensed by our states. And to get registered, you have to take an examination after you finish your internship.
00:09:22
Speaker
And you have to maintain 75 credits every five years to just maintain that credential. So we are well trained.
00:09:34
Speaker
in nutrition and in dietetics. So you might say, well, what in the world is dietetics? Dietetics is taking the science of nutrition and teaching people how to incorporate that into their lives and into their lifestyles. And we make adjustments if there's clinical need or if there is just someone who wants to just eat better and feel better and improve their health. So that's what a registered dietician is.
00:10:01
Speaker
Now, a few years ago, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics decided, because of the confusion, to add nutritionist to RD. So now you have an RDN. Okay. Okay. The term nutritionist alone
00:10:18
Speaker
means very little. We have a colleague that Roberta and I both know whose dog is certified as a nutritionist. She has that certification in her office to illustrate that anybody can call themselves a nutritionist.
00:10:42
Speaker
So a rigorous course of education and testing and continuing professional education can be a registered dietitian, nutritionist. So it takes about seven years for a dog to do it in dog years? I'm very sure. Dogs much smarter than you. Right. Like just two weeks, right? Boom. Done. Two weeks, yeah. Oh, man. Wow. That's funny. Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
a class reunion every three months. All right. Wow. All right. That's crazy. We also have an amazing guest with us named Astrid. She was a former professional dancer. Astrid, I would love to hear more about your journey and I hear that you are in RD to B, which is so exciting. Tell us a little bit about your dance journey. Yes. Thank you so much for having me.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's funny to me, it's funny to think the way I started is when you hear about other dancers, how they started usually goes, Oh, my mom put me in ballet classes when I was three years old, and I was just love at first sight. But in my case, I was, I was six years old, and
00:11:56
Speaker
really just got me into ballet because I was walking
Body Image Pressures in Dance
00:12:01
Speaker
with my feet turned in. So they took me to the doctor and they just recommended me to take ballet or dance classes. It didn't have to be ballet. And my mom just took me to ballet and ever since I've been in bulk with ballet.
00:12:17
Speaker
But I did most of my training in Venezuela. After that, I had this opportunity to move to Panama with my whole family. And I was able to dance with the Ballet Museum in Panama for about a year and a half.
00:12:33
Speaker
I had to move to the United States or Miami specifically and I was just trying to stay in shape by taking a few classes in Miami City Ballet and the instructor there just saw me and just wondered why didn't you audition for the pre-professional program.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I was like, that could be a really good opportunity. And so I did. And I was able to dance with the Miami City Ballet School for a year and a half, which was an amazing experience because I've been training. There's a lot of different ballet styles. I was training mainly in the Vaganova, which is the Russian style, with a little bit of Cuban style in Panama. So I had a good mix. And then Miami City Ballet had
00:13:19
Speaker
this focus on Balanchine style, which is very famous and popular, especially in New York, New York City Ballet. So that was a good exposure, right? I could see my improved and had changed a lot. I could see myself just had this versatility.
00:13:37
Speaker
that I didn't have before. So, um, I did my last couple of years, um, dancing in Arts Ballet through Florida, which is like a small company, um, where I was able to just dance a really iconic Coppelia. So it was a beautiful experience. As you become a professional, you think you're done right with learning, but the reality is it's a constant learning experience. So every single class, even though you're doing something,
00:14:07
Speaker
pretty much the same thing, right? Your same warm up. There's always a way to improve it. There's always a way to make or perform better. So I was constantly learning and constantly wanting to improve. And it didn't ever feel like I was ready and perfect and done. And I think that's something
00:14:28
Speaker
that not only dancers that get to corpse with ballet, but the soloists, you look up to them and the prima ballerinas and they showed you all the time how they're always ready to go back to basis, always ready to take a big class just so that they can look into their technique and perfect it again. So they're really, really fulfilling for sure.
00:14:51
Speaker
So Astrid, why nutrition now? I know that nutrition has, I assume, has had a really big impact on you throughout your career. Could you hear a little bit about why you have goals of becoming a dietitian? I didn't always know that I wanted to be a dietitian. I think the desire to become one arose from just me having so many questions and no answers, right, when I was a dancer. For the most part,
00:15:21
Speaker
I would just look for the answers on Google or blog articles. And to me, it was frustrating because they were always contradicting. So as I could see that I was ready to move on from my ballet career, at least as a performer, I was like, I want to do something that is still involved with the ballet world or dance world. So I thought,
00:15:49
Speaker
what is a good way for me to be helpful or make an impact other than as an instructor teaching still, right? But I wanted to do more. Did you see a lot of bad outcomes with your colleagues in the professional world with nutrition and body image issues, eating disorders and things? I think that's like the sad part, right? For the most part, whenever we'd have conversations, it would always involve
00:16:19
Speaker
Body image and weight or what foods are you eating or are you following this diet? That's worked for me. Why don't you try this? Or you know, I didn't either today or and it was normal it was you know
00:16:35
Speaker
you would think you would get tired of it, but it was just, it's just, I think we were in a constant need to lose weight perpetually. Like it was never for my case or my peers, it was, we were constantly trying to lose weight for all who know how many years. So yeah, absolutely saw things like, you know, my peers
00:17:00
Speaker
weighing themselves after they ate an apple, for example, right? Like as if that would make a difference or even just being very tense and scared about getting weighed at your, you know, the company having to do those weigh-ins. It was definitely something that would cause a lot of anxiety and frustration, but it was almost normal in a way. So yeah.
Dietitians' Role in Dance Community
00:17:26
Speaker
Astrid, I have a question for you. When I worked with the Ohio Ballet, it was in the later 80s, 1980s, which seems like when? But one of the things that I experienced with the dancers was a pressure from the director. The director's idea of the ideal ballerina or the ideal ballerina weight or physique. Is that still common?
00:17:55
Speaker
I stopped dancing in 2017 and up to that point, it was still like that. For me, that was the most horrifying thing because some directors would choose to tell you in private that they think that you might need to do something about your way, but some others will just be very vocal about it in front of all your peers, all of the coworkers.
00:18:19
Speaker
It was a very humiliating situation, and I hope right now with this whole inclusivity movement, I hope that that's changing. I think it's different from the economies where at work, well, that's not comparable because we don't have an artistic director. It's basically instructors, and we do our best.
00:18:43
Speaker
not talk about weight at all, but just how to properly fuel bodies in. Having a good or healthy relationship with food, right? But when it was at the company, yeah, it was a terrifying thing. I would always try it whenever they would call us in group because I thought, okay, this is going to happen.
00:19:03
Speaker
I guess the other thing I'd like to put in there, and I'm going to put in a hopeful message here. I was fortunate to work with Lauren Anderson at the Houston Ballet, and she is muscular and fit and a gorgeous dancer.
00:19:18
Speaker
And then Misty Copeland comes along and again has that, I'm going to say in my mind, a beautiful and more muscular physique than you would see in traditional dance. So Astrid, are these women that you would say the average dancer looks up to or give me your thoughts on that? Yes, a hundred percent. I think now with having Misty Copeland and Lauren Anderson,
00:19:47
Speaker
as examples in knowing about their careers. It's definitely people that we look up to. And for those that are new in the ballet world, we certainly make sure that we let them know who these people are, that you don't have to look super thin to be a talented and beautiful ballet dancer. You can also look
00:20:14
Speaker
strong and muscular and still be amazing in ballet. There's this dancer called Mariela Nunez. She's from Argentina and Dimsos in London, if I'm not wrong, Royal Ballet. And she looks amazing. And then she's all muscled as well. I think it has shifted the mindset of, oh, I have to be super, super, super slim.
00:20:43
Speaker
And it's good that we have other dancers that look different as an example. But I think we still have a long way to go, for sure.
00:20:53
Speaker
Astrid, I have another question for you. One of the problems that we had to deal with with our ballet dancers, first of all, I will tell you that we tested them and the ballet dancers were stronger than the football players that we tested. Oh, wow. It was pretty amazing.
Dancers' Support Amidst Competition
00:21:08
Speaker
But my question for you is that one of the issues that the professional ballet dancers had to deal with was they worked while everybody played.
00:21:19
Speaker
and they played while everybody worked. The hours that they kept were different from the average individual. They might be working until 11 o'clock at night and then they're so revved up that they'll go out and have food or drink or whatever. Could you talk about your experience with any of that? So because I was in a small company, our hours were actually not as long
00:21:46
Speaker
on a daily basis. I'm sure bigger companies have performances, not just in the weekends, which would be our case, but you would have them have these performances back to back sometimes from Wednesday to Sunday.
00:22:02
Speaker
In my case, I would be doing between six, eight hours, and the performances, well, they were very spread out, so we didn't have to do those back-to-backs so often. But whenever we would, it was very intense, really tiring as well. With a day so packed with so many rehearsals and activity, it almost leaves very little
00:22:26
Speaker
time for dancers to properly fuel and for the most part includes just protein because of the sphere of carbs. When you're in the middle of training where you definitely need the most is carbs, right? So I don't know if we as a profession give it enough importance. The focus as dancers, the focus that we give to nutrition and fueling, it's not directed to performance per se, but more about
00:22:55
Speaker
How do we use some nutrition strategies to make this look slimmer and look better? And our artistic director gives us more roles. So it almost feels like performance, at least in my experience, was almost secondary to how we could actually improve the way we looked on stage.
00:23:16
Speaker
And Astrid, I don't know if you ever experienced this, but when I was dancing, I remember when an instructor would critique a movement. They might compare it to an animal, right? And they might say like, oh, so and so is landing like a whale. And it's like there was a lot of these,
00:23:37
Speaker
you know, metaphors that were being used that I can see how a dancer that might be feeling sensitive or just kind of vulnerable in a moment when they were trying something new, taking that and internalizing that and feeling like that means they need to change their body. And so I'm just curious to see, you know, Roberta and Michelle, when you guys were counseling dancers during your time in the dance companies, how did you guys navigate these conversations if a dancer did come
00:24:06
Speaker
to you and hopefully I'm hoping they were reaching out when they were experiencing something like this. Well, I think that kind of goes with that whole concept of body shaming, right? So when you're using those metaphors and say you landed like a whale or you landed like a thud, none of that speaks beauty and artistic abilities. It's deprecating, but not to the point of saying,
00:24:33
Speaker
your fat. I had some of the instructors that I worked with that would actually use those words and say, first they'd start out and say, your lines aren't great. And everybody knew what that meant. You don't have great lines. It's like, okay, you need to lose weight. And oftentimes they were sent to see me for weight loss. And it became more punitive.
00:24:56
Speaker
than educational. It's like, well, you need to go see the dietician. And the implication was, there's your punishment, is the dietician is going to help you to do this. And so I think as RDs, our role is not only to understand the dance world. And I'm pretty
Empathy in Nutrition Counseling
00:25:14
Speaker
fond of saying, if you're five foot six and 150 pounds, it's going to be difficult for you to partner with somebody.
00:25:23
Speaker
it's going to be difficult for maybe someone to lift you. So this is an aesthetic sport that there's this fine line between malnutrition and adequate fueling and being lean and malnourished. And those were the conversations that I would have. Because to Ashford's point, the message was starve yourself. Yeah.
00:25:46
Speaker
I'm not going to choose you for a part." And then they would come back and say, well, she doesn't have any energy or she gets fatigued in the middle of rehearsal. She can't cognitively perform. She can't do the choreography anymore. And I keep saying she because that's what it was. The males were oftentimes saying, get stronger, get stronger, lift weights. The message was different, but for the women,
00:26:11
Speaker
it was difficult. So I think being a dietician in that arena, you're dealing with body image concerns, you're dealing oftentimes with
00:26:20
Speaker
depression, I've put all of my career goals on being in a professional company, and I may not get there if I don't do that. And then you're also dealing with the sequelae. If you take those calories so low, and we know this as physicians and dieticians, you end up lowering metabolic rate, and so the amount of calories to support you
00:26:42
Speaker
actually goes down and then it's self-perpetuating. Oh, there's something wrong with my body because I'm only eating 1200 calories a day and I'm no longer losing weight. I'm broken rather than not knowing it's malnutrition. So I think it takes skill in disordered eating, body image concerns, depression, and understanding truly in the dance world what under fueling means. And so Michelle, was that your experience as well?
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, Roberta. You hit the nail on the head. The other thing I wanted to say is the beauty of us being dieticians. I know Roberta does this as well as I and Yasi. I always tell my athletes, whether it's a performance athlete or a football or a baseball athlete, I am here number one for your health. Yes. Then your performance. I don't focus on the weight because I say I don't care what you weigh sometimes. I'll say that.
00:27:41
Speaker
I care what you do, because if you do what's best for your health and your performance, your weight will be where it needs to be. And I think that's the beauty of it, because we can take that focus away from the weight per se, not that someone doesn't come into you and say, I have to lose 10 pounds or I have to gain 10 pounds. But the point is, if you look at their health,
00:28:06
Speaker
and you make sure that they're healthy first, and then you look at their performance, we know enough about performance nutrition to be able to guide them into good performance. That takes that stigma that we all experienced, the stigma of the dietician, she's going to tell me to lose weight. Not necessarily. An addendum to that, Michelle, I think the other piece of this is, and I think this is being empathetic,
00:28:36
Speaker
If I look at someone and they've invested their whole career, invested 10 or 15 years, and they're looking at this and saying, you're talking to me about my health, but I need to lose five pounds, so I'm going to do this with or without you. And if that means I'm going to do something aberrant, I'm going to use laxatives, I'm going to use diuretics, I'm going to fast or whatever that modality is,
00:29:04
Speaker
I think that puts oftentimes the dancer, they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Yes, they want to maximize
Community Support and Mentorship
00:29:10
Speaker
their health, but they also know that if they're in a pre-professional and they're so close to being in the company that it's like all I have to do.
00:29:20
Speaker
And so again, I think being empathetic and how difficult this must be, we can flip this and put this on any sport, right? So if you want to be alignment in football, you're not going to be alignment if you weigh 150 pounds, not going to happen. You're going to have to force your weight in that other direction. And if the dietician isn't guiding you along that path, you're going to do it on your own. And it might be that you eat, you know, a 16 piece bucket of fried chicken.
00:29:47
Speaker
I did an interview with a former lineman yesterday and he said, yeah, I'll admit it. I binged. I absolutely binged. I got to the point where I really thought I was going to vomit, but I had to play at 315. So I think in all aspects of performance nutrition, it's almost putting yourself in that person's shoes.
00:30:05
Speaker
and saying, how can I guide you with an eye on your health, but also honoring and respecting the fact that this is your life and walking that fine line? Because I think most female dancers know if somebody says, do you have a period?
00:30:21
Speaker
No one is going to validate that without blood work. So it's like, sure, I have normal cycle every month because they know they're going to be asked that either on a pre-participation physical, they're going to be screened for amenorrhea. So unless you're doing a bunch of blood work, why would I admit that? Unless where I am is in a safe space where somebody is going to guide me.
00:30:45
Speaker
and not just say you don't need to focus in on your weight or you don't need to focus only in on your health. So I think there's all kinds of different layers to this that makes dance not only beautiful, the dancers are beautiful to work with, but also super complex.
00:31:02
Speaker
And Roberta, you're absolutely right on that. I didn't mean to imply that the weight didn't matter. But they also know that as a dietician, we're health professionals, and we want to keep them healthy. Otherwise, they won't be dancing. Right. The same thing with the other athletes that we work with. If you're not healthy, when you are energy deprived,
00:31:23
Speaker
you put yourself at risking your immune system function. And if you're not feeling good, if you're not well, I don't care what weight you are, I don't care how good you are, you're not playing. If you're getting sick all the time, getting respiratory disease all the time because you're restricting so much that you're compromising your immune system. So Roberta's right, the empathy there
00:31:52
Speaker
goes back to one of the things that I always loved was trying to get to know the person. You're not just another football player or a dancer or a basketball player or whatever. You're a person. And the first part of that for me always was getting to know them. What I loved very often was watching, going to practices and watch. And they would see you there. And they got to believe that you really cared about me.
00:32:21
Speaker
So Roberta's point is so well taken. You have to be empathetic and you're not a director. You're a source of information. You're a facilitator. We facilitate them doing what's best for them.
00:32:41
Speaker
So we talk a lot about choreographers and directors and how they talk to dancers, how dancers look at themselves and how they have sometimes self-defeating ideas in their head about nutrition.
Nutritional Education and Reliable Resources
00:32:53
Speaker
But what's it like, and Astrid, you can talk about this, I think, here, what's it like in between among the dancers themselves?
00:33:01
Speaker
What are the relationships like? How do you talk about these issues with each other? Because in the professional world, of course, it's one problem because there's competition. But then there's also, you know, we're all in this together against the director. We're all in this together. We're all experiencing the same kind of problem.
00:33:18
Speaker
There's obviously a need to want to share this, not suffer in silence, but at the same time, do you ever look at the answers, ever look at each other and say that person is actually kind of heavy compared to me? Or is it always like everybody else is better than I am? I mean, what kind of interactions do you see? I think I saw a little bit of everything. I would say when I was dancing professionally,
00:33:47
Speaker
it was because there was so much competition because you know you want to get a spot in the company it was more of like oh how come that this person got the job and I am stronger at this or it looks better than her or something like that I
00:34:04
Speaker
I think I got to see that perspective with my peers when we were just trying to find a job. But once I was in the company, you just spend so much time with these people or I became closer to them whenever we would find ourselves. Because again, we would talk about the way we look every single day, every time. I mean, we worked eight hours right in front of really big mirrors.
00:34:31
Speaker
You know, it's all we talk about, how we look, the lines, everything. So whenever we have a director talk about how we look, either individually or as a group, like if we have to lose weight or look more in shape, we would just kind of like just try to tear each other up because it was one, you know, frustrating because we are trying already our best to
00:34:57
Speaker
lose weight, right? Because it never ends. At least in my case, we were constantly dieting. And at that point, all we could do or we were trying to do is advise each other what was the best way to do it or to please the directors so that we wouldn't be called out again.
00:35:19
Speaker
The thing is, we would go to each other because I always worked in small companies or companies that maybe didn't have the funds to provide nutrition services or a dietician. So we only had each other really, we couldn't talk about it with anybody else other than your peers or your support system could be your family. But then
00:35:46
Speaker
If you think about it, I was always lucky enough to have my family with me wherever I was working. But I had friends, dancers as well, that they would just come from Brazil and not see their parents for two years. So all they had was to talk about this, to talk this about with us, you know. So you become a therapist, you become a nutritionist. I think it's amazing that
00:36:11
Speaker
the Houston Ballet and other prestigious institutions have the ability to have a sports medicine team or nutrition or dieticians. But when it comes to small companies, small studios, dance academies, they don't have that.
00:36:30
Speaker
Again, it's just your your friends become all of that that you're trying that you that we need really as as dancers Yeah, I was complicated especially because I never went into a really big really big company So I was never exposed to a nutrition I never I've never been into a nutritionist actually or a dietician before so you just kind of had to do it on your own and Google That was gonna be my question
00:36:57
Speaker
where do the dancers get their information if they don't have a dietitian? Right. So yes, Google, to me, it was Google. And that's why I got into that nutrition dietetics because I was so frustrated because I would find an article that would say something. And then the other one talking about the same topic would just say the opposite. So I was like, so who's right? And it was just
00:37:20
Speaker
Google or Instagram. Instagram was starting to get very popular when I was dancing pre-professionally. Right now, I think right now it's even more tricky because we got all these Tik Tokers and everyone's a nutrition expert and it gets tricky because yes, it's awesome that they can find nutrition information, but also who are you getting it from, right? And so that's why
00:37:50
Speaker
When Roberta told me about athletes in the arts, I was like, how did I never learn about this before? And I know for a fact, none of my peers who are still dancing know about this. And so now I just want to let them know that there are resources out there because if you can't afford nutrition services at a dietician,
00:38:12
Speaker
at least we can give them information or have them refer them to outpatients for dieticians if they don't have that. But I think there's got to be a limit between what the coach can do about the nutrition. They shouldn't be the one to tell you what to eat or how to do it or how much weight you have to lose.
00:38:38
Speaker
Here on the Athletes in the Arts podcast, Steve and I have actually been
Debunking Nutrition Myths in Dance
00:38:43
Speaker
really lucky that we've interviewed a lot of different directors and dance that have caught on to the importance of nutrition and how vital it is to have a sports medicine staff on board, even at a studio or a company, just to make sure that dancers are meeting their needs and following up when they need to, when they get injured and helping kind of navigate
00:39:08
Speaker
the nutritional aspect of things before things get bad. And so we've been fortunate to see that there are directors and instructors out there that are paying attention to this, but there's still a lot of work that we need to do.
00:39:23
Speaker
The other thing is, so yes, today there's a lot of people turning to TikTok, Instagram, Google. And then in the days that I was doing more dance, I remember it was magazines and newspapers and maybe a news segment on a celebrity. And so there's a ton of information out there. And I hope that with the resources that we have, people can learn and understand that it's important to get your information from the right sources, from someone who is credentialed.
00:39:52
Speaker
a dietician. And something else that I think would be really important to discuss is how do we continue to cultivate body image resilience in dancers? So Astrid, you talked a little bit about being a Pilates instructor too, right? And you're doing some instructing with dance. So how are you taking your experience and sharing it with the dancers that you work with or any of the students that come in for Pilates?
00:40:17
Speaker
Yes. Well, for Pilates, I'm lucky enough because I was able to network with the owner who's a former soloist ballet dancer. So she knows all about ballet as well. So at our studio, for Pilates, we usually get to teach to adult women, not necessarily professional ballet dancers or
00:40:41
Speaker
or teenagers, it's mainly the adult population. And it's a beautiful thing because the philosophy of our studio is just body positivity. So she did a really good job at training all the instructors, which we're about, I lost count, I think we're like 15 instructors in total, but she did an amazing job at
00:41:05
Speaker
You know, first thing she she told us when when training is we're not here to talk about calories, how many calories we're going to be burning on this workout or I need to lose weight, you know, and if we ever get a client that
00:41:22
Speaker
You know, we, with these comments, we just redirect, right? We just, we try to praise them because they look more energetic or they look stronger, happier. And we try not to put the focus on how they look, right? But it's a beautiful place.
00:41:43
Speaker
Everyone is so supportive of each other and I think a lot of it, you know, for example, my mom she she comes to take classes at the studio and she's a very very shy person and She loves it there because she doesn't feel judged. She doesn't feel like you're looking at her and it's a very it's a very comfortable space that we've been able to create because
00:42:06
Speaker
then you can be you of whatever shape at whatever size and know that you're you know you're you're there to have fun to just be the healthier version of yourself and for for my ballet students sometimes it's hard in the sense that whenever i hear them have me say comments about what they're eating and not gentle towards themselves it's hard because it's like
00:42:31
Speaker
I wish they could see how amazing they are. And sometimes I take that to myself, and I was like, what if I could have been able to tell this to myself when I was their age, right? So I try to be that person that tells them, you don't need to talk to yourself in this way. And there's other things that we can focus on. Your technique is getting better.
00:42:58
Speaker
you know, you look stronger, you have more energy to do a full run of the stance. And if they ever have nutrition concerns, I try to do the team talk style, right? Because it's the best way to get their attention for at least five to 10 minutes. And we'll talk about nutrition. I'll let them ask questions and you know,
00:43:21
Speaker
I just try to keep it very positive so that they don't feel like I'm just another instructor that is expecting them to look a certain way and just have this anxiety towards what they're eating because they're so young. They're so young. It hurts me to see sometimes that they feel like they need to diet, right?
00:43:43
Speaker
Michelle and Roberta, can you share a little bit about some of the other performance factors that one can focus on as a dancer that has nothing to do with weight? Because I think I see this in regular athletics as well. It's like when I was helping build body composition policies and
00:44:01
Speaker
and trying to navigate away from weighing all the time and having to depend on a body composition, tracking like a device of some sort. We'd be having these conversations with coaches like let's talk about some of the other factors to be focusing in on that can support the gymnast, the runner. So what are some of the things that you guys would stress the importance of?
00:44:25
Speaker
Well, I'm going to say how much time do we have? When you think about overall performance nutrition, and I think Astrid mentioned it, that if the focus is, I need to eat more protein and not eat carbs, you can start to see things where people can't get through a workout. I hear the comment, my legs were dead. I couldn't get through a workout. And it becomes, again, that teaching moment.
00:44:50
Speaker
And just like Michelle said, when you go to a rehearsal and you're there and someone just has a quick question, it doesn't have to be a siliquy on everything about nutrition. I think oftentimes when we start to talk about optimal performance, particularly in dance, we need to take a look at what I call vulnerable nutrients. If you're an indoor athlete and my experiences, ballerinas don't sit out in the sun and get tan, they're much more likely to have a vitamin D deficiency.
00:45:19
Speaker
Dairy has gotten a really bad name for lots of inappropriate reasons. And so milk is off the menu. And now you're really looking at metabolic bone disease. You've got amenorrhea, calcium deficiencies, vitamin D deficiencies. Even in a female athlete who is amenorrhea, you can still have iron deficiency anemia.
00:45:41
Speaker
that can cause fatigue and now you're vegan and you're vegan for caloric reasons, not because of animal rights. So again, it's
Support for Young Dancers from Parents and Educators
00:45:50
Speaker
that skilled dietician that can take a look at, again, those vulnerable nutrients and say, did you know if you're iron deficient, you're going to be short of breath by the end of a rehearsal, you're going to be fatigued walking up a flight of stairs. It doesn't mean that you need to rehearse more or train more. You've got a nutrition deficiency.
00:46:10
Speaker
And I think oftentimes we do focus in on calories and weight and body composition, and we miss the forest for the trees. Nutrition is much more than that. Nutrition is about having all the nutrients in concert with one another to maximize performance, regardless of your chosen sport or discipline.
00:46:32
Speaker
Excellent. And I agree with all of that. And one thing I will add to that is if we can teach the concept of energy availability, when you're sitting there watching, you don't need to be necessarily eating unless you're going to be dancing very soon. So you want to teach them to eat to their needs.
00:46:53
Speaker
That way you're not energy deficient. You don't want to give them too much, but you want them to have enough to be able to keep the stamina. And as a dancer, stamina has got to be a big part of what you need to build. And so if we can teach that scientific concept in a simple way of energy availability, it's not that you're always eating, it's you're eating when you need to, and you have your carbs when you need them.
00:47:21
Speaker
So maybe later in the evening, you don't have as many carbs, but that's when you have more of your protein. Everyone thinks that protein is going to give them energy.
00:47:32
Speaker
Well, it will if you don't have enough carbs. And then that's not a good thing because you really want to use carbs for your energy. And I think that, to add to what Roberta said, sort of makes a nice package as a dietician going in and addressing all of these issues. And if you can teach nutrition in a basic level to your dancers, then there's a trust and a belief.
00:48:01
Speaker
And that's why I think having a summer intensive program, if you're in one of the bigger companies and you get to see these dancers come back year after year, you're building a positive curriculum that nutrition is not an enemy, it's an ally. And here's why we call it that. And again, very fortunate for me that I got to build a curriculum at the Houston Ballet.
00:48:25
Speaker
and my dancers were my best critics. Well, could you teach me about this or should I be taking supplements? Should I fill in the blank? Should I be taking probiotics for protecting my immune system where honestly you're just under fueled and you're not sleeping well and a probiotic really isn't going to help you? So again, I think we've got great opportunities as sports dieticians
00:48:50
Speaker
to make a positive impact along with our team physicians. And if your company has an athletic trainer or a physical therapist, this is the team behind the team. And I think that's the beauty of sport is you've got a team behind the team. So you mentioned before about how that theory has got a bad name now and we're seeing more problems because of that. So if you all, if you, everybody here had a magic
00:49:16
Speaker
If everybody here had a magic wand and they could make one myth about nutrition go away, one or two, or one problematic belief out there that it gets perpetuated all the time, what would that be? Thinner is better. I think there becomes that tipping point where you lose too much weight and you're losing muscle mass and you lose your beauty and you lose your ability. And I think in the dance world, I think the concept always is thinner is better.
00:49:46
Speaker
I think that's a big myth. Another myth is that calcium or that milk myth, that milk is not good for you. If they could even take a yogurt with them, even a tiny little yogurt to have in between their practices, they're going to be getting some calcium out of that.
00:50:05
Speaker
There are certain foods that are pretty rich in calcium in the dairy world. There are some outside the dairy world, but in the dairy world, there are some foods that are really rich in calcium. So you don't have to eat as much of them to get as much calcium and protein. So again, that's another thing that dairy is not good for you. Dairy is definitely good for you.
00:50:30
Speaker
I'll throw in another one. Ameneria is normal in dancers and it's perfectly okay to not have your period at 21 years old. And while my instructor told me she never had a period. So I think, and Astra did a beautiful job of highlighting this, is oftentimes your fellow dancers are your source of information. And then oftentimes they're getting their information from their instructors. And I cannot tell you how many times I heard,
00:50:58
Speaker
Well, dancers don't need to get periods. It's because we train hard. And then the sequelae is you've got osteoporosis in your early thirties. And, um, you know, there's, there's things that you don't get a do over and optimum bone health. You don't necessarily get a do over. So I think there's a lot of myths.
00:51:16
Speaker
in that professional world of dance. And I think the challenges and the opportunity for us as dieticians is we need to make a positive impact on this very, very important group of artistic athletes.
00:51:32
Speaker
There's one other myth is that you only get fluid from water. And people that walk around with the 64 ounces of water, they
Resources for Dancers and Athletes
00:51:40
Speaker
discount the fact that you get fluid in other foods. And for dancers, that could be one way to tamp down your appetite. And you can say, well, I'm getting hydrated, but you may be displacing some nutrients with water. Not that water isn't good, not that we shouldn't be hydrated, but balance.
00:52:01
Speaker
Can I also add that carbs are our friends? Absolutely necessary for an efficient and easy energy source that can be used towards dance. I am gonna throw that in there and I'm very passionate about it. What can parents do to support young athletes? We have something called Dance Moms, right? And they are backstage, they are with us at the studio. A lot of the information in addition to the directors and the media,
00:52:28
Speaker
is the information that we get from moms and how or dads how can we navigate that and how do we what can parents do to support their dancers because a lot of the the beliefs of the dancers start in those early years and it progresses on to the 20s and 30s and even 40s and later on so how do we how do we navigate that?
00:52:50
Speaker
because I've done a lot of talks in this area. I think first moms and dads need to have their own positive body image and that needs to be mirrored at home where you don't say at the dinner table, oh geez, I gained 10 pounds on vacation.
00:53:08
Speaker
I guess I need to go do hole 30 because when the dieting culture is set at home, it's really hard to undo the dieting culture. I think oftentimes, and this is where my physician colleagues are indispensable, I think that most parents don't have a good understanding of pubertal growth and development.
00:53:31
Speaker
and don't understand the body compositions that are normal and expected, because I would get calls, well, my daughter got a little hippie. Or she's putting on a little extra body fat, not having any clue that it's normal. So I do think, and that's an excellent question Yasi, I do think there needs to be tons of education for those first best teachers, which our parents leave your own body dissatisfaction at the door.
00:54:01
Speaker
and make sure that if you don't have a good handle on normal pubertal development, that you either ask your pediatrician, primary care doc, sports medicine doc, and get educated on your own. I think it's also important to educate parents on use of services of a therapist. I think first thing that needs to be done by parents is yes, build that self-esteem for their kid and that self-confidence.
00:54:28
Speaker
when it gets hard, because it will get hard, it will get more, it will be more pressure, this will be more competition, you want them to be at least preparing that sense. But that doesn't mean that there's going to be a point where they can break, right? And at what point can a parent help in that aspect? And I think normalizing the need of therapists, you know, at least in the Latino culture, which is
00:54:55
Speaker
of my culture, it's still seen as it's for crazy people. So I think being able to just educate our parents or just like the dancers in general, like it's okay if we need help, right? I think that having that support throughout their career is as important just as much as it is to have your support system, which can be your family and friends as well.
00:55:23
Speaker
And I'd like to add that maybe educating the parents that registered dietitians who specialize in this area are really helpful to their students and inviting the parents to either meet alone with you so that you can
00:55:39
Speaker
educate them or to have them come in with a first or second meeting with their dancer so they understand what a dietitian is going to do. I'm very fortunate that the little dancer that I'm working with right now, I call her little because she's young, but the young dancer that I'm working with, it was her mother who planted the seed
00:56:00
Speaker
And she said, why don't you talk to Miss Macedonia? Because the daughter was saying to her, I'd like to lose a little bit of weight. I'd like to get in better shape. She didn't listen at first. And my friend stepped away. And then the daughter came to the mother and said, Mom, would you call Miss Macedonia so I could talk with her? And I think it's really helpful when the parents are supportive
00:56:24
Speaker
because they will help execute some of the suggestions. Like I had this mom bring a little snack that we planned into her day, bring it to her when she picked her up so that when she walked in the door, she wasn't ravenous and then just grabbed at anything she could get. So I think it's good to involve the parents in the education. I guess the last comment I'll make about that is because this is a passion area of mine,
00:56:53
Speaker
is not everybody can afford a therapist, not everybody can afford a registered dietician. So we end up with a whole population that is underserved. So I would also encourage that for dieticians who really want to get into this area to at least initially volunteer some time, go knock on the door to smaller companies and say, I'd love to be able to give a talk for your group and please invite the parents.
00:57:22
Speaker
And then at least the information is disseminated and then the company can refer on to the RD. I've done this with a really great sports psychologist in Houston and we've gone to the smaller companies that could not afford
00:57:37
Speaker
and again, some of the inner city dance ballet groups that are in Houston, not necessarily ballet, but it could be hip hop or something else, and volunteered our time knowing that we're not gonna get any referrals. We're not gonna get any referrals because the family cannot afford it. So I think for us, again, we all have to make a living. We need to make sure that we're taking care of our own finances, but it's also taking a look at vulnerable populations that are never gonna be able to afford a therapist or an RD, and again,
00:58:07
Speaker
taking a look at where could you strategically volunteer your time to give out this information, particularly for RDS to be. Let's say I want to work in this area, perfect opportunity for you to get with a mentor, develop an outline, imperfect your public speaking skills, and then everybody wins. The RD to be wins, the mentor wins, and most importantly, our athletes win.
Conclusion and Resource Reminder
00:58:31
Speaker
And it's important as a professional to give back because you didn't get to where you got without somebody helping you. So I want to shift over real quick to the Sports and Human Performance Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group. I want to just share what kind of resources are available to dancers. Could you tell us a little bit about that, Roberta?
00:58:55
Speaker
Sure. And as Michelle said, for those people who are not familiar with dietetic practice groups, the original one was sports cardiovascular and wellness. And as the performance world grew and grew and grew and the cardiovascular group grew, there wasn't enough time and space to do both content areas justice.
00:59:17
Speaker
So under the leadership of Lindsay Torres and Jen Ketterle, the decision was made to split and now have sports and human performance nutrition. And this encompasses all people who are physically active, from firefighters to first responders. I would probably say we could put trauma surgeons in there. Anybody who's physically active now should have a home. So the website is
00:59:48
Speaker
shippenshpndpg.org, and then you can click on fact sheets. If you remember, there are webinars, and again, Michelle is correct. She really helped us to build out some great webinars on bone health and omega-3s and other things that dietitians can take back to their work site and enhance nutrition. So our theme for this year was to elevate practice.
01:00:13
Speaker
And in order to elevate practice, sports dieticians need to take the lead and they need to have the correct information because as the science evolves, if you don't evolve with it, you now become immaterial. It's like, Oh, here's the dietician. She's going to give me an exchange diet and can't answer my question. So the goal is to elevate practice. So I would encourage any dietician who's listening to this podcast.
01:00:42
Speaker
To become a member, to come visit our booth at Fensi, if you're going to our annual meeting in Orlando, please come visit and learn a little bit more about shipping. Certainly want to thank all the dieticians who came before me now that I'm back in this chair role, certainly led by Michelle Macedonio, Chris Rosenblum, Leslie Bonsie, Ellen Coleman, all these giants of sports nutrition that made the evolution of this practice so much more
01:01:11
Speaker
much easier to execute based on the shoulders of those giants.
01:01:18
Speaker
I couldn't have said it better. Thank you all so much. This has just been such an amazing episode and so beautiful to have you all on here with us. Tons of great information in this episode. For more information, I want to encourage all listeners to go to shpndpg.org. We have a ton of resources for athletes and just sports nutrition, general sports nutrition information, and now we have
01:01:46
Speaker
a whole section coming up for athletes and the arts. Right now we do have general fact sheets on nutrition for dancers and we are continuing to grow the resources that we provide on this website. In addition, our athletesandthearts.com website has a ton of information as well. We have a great amount of resources from professionals and we are encouraging everyone and all listeners to
01:02:13
Speaker
really take a look at the nutrition information that's out there and make sure they're getting their nutrition information from trusted sources. So thank you again, Roberta, Michelle, and Astrid for being here with us this morning. And of course, Steve, my co-host. This was awesome. And thank you all again. Well, thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks so much. And that wraps up our show. I want to thank all of our guests today, as well as Yasi. Remember, if you like what you hear, please click Subscribe and leave a nice review for us.
01:02:41
Speaker
For Yasi Ansari, this is Stephen Karaginas, and this has been the Athletes and the Arts Podcast.