Hello! Need advice for 15 year old daughter!

Wow, there's a lot to consider here.

A little about me, I'm a professional ballerina. I'm 31 and still perform and am looking for a new company position this year. I've been training in ballet since I was about 10 so I've had a long history with ballet.

I've never eaten 3,000 calories a day nor have I ever felt that my calorie consumption (between 1,500-2,100) has ever not been enough to sustain my rehearsal and workout routine. I'm a professional, sometimes putting in 8-16 hours a day of class, rehearsals and gym time. I'm 5'5 and I'm currently at 112. Right now I am not dancing at my highest potential as I'm not currently in season so I weigh more and eat a bit less since I don't need as many calories to sustain my current routine. When I'm in season I weigh between 105-110 I eat closer to 2,000 and off season between 110-115. To give an idea....5'3 at 104 I would say is a good weight for a dancer who is in season (dancing everyday or several hours a week) it wouldn't necessarily raise any red flags to me as a ballet instructor.

When I was younger I did develop an eating disorder. I was about 16 years old I was training in an Academy program that is also linked to a very prestigious national company. I was dancing a lot, and was very young and naive I was also very impressionable. I was in a class of my peers who were also in the same stages of their careers and life. We talked a lot about weight and how we looked. Comments would always be made that our instructor liked the skinniest dancers the best. We would always talk about what we ate, how much we ate, it started becoming like a competition in a way...who was eating the least and losing the most weight... It started off slow, skipping meals, increasing my working out at home, and I started losing weight. When I first started the process I was still eating, but I wanted to be a vegetarian because I thought it would be healthier. So I begged my mom to take me to special health food stores and let me pick the food I wanted to eat. I lost weight probably dropped to about 105 pounds. I felt good at that weight, but the girls in my class were still "skinnier" than me when I looked at all of us lined up in the mirror. So I decided well, I guess I can't lose as much weight as I thought being a vegetarian so I should eat FEWER meals and calories.

At the worst of my eating disorder I would eat an apple for breakfast, carrots for lunch, and would try to avoid dinner at all costs. If I ate foods that weren't "acceptable" or if I had a "binge" I would abuse laxatives. I think the signs were there that something was wrong. I was always in my room (my bedroom had a private bathroom attached) and would go in there and weigh myself every hour. I would rearrange the kitchen to put all the unhealthy things on the top shelf or hide them so I wouldn't be tempted to eat them. I never wanted to eat in front of anyone. If I was forced to have a family dinner, I'd just push the food around my plate or try to spit it out in a napkin.

I dropped to about 95 pounds...way under weight. I couldn't sustain all the dancing, and abusing my body. I grew increasingly weaker and had to stop dancing when I was 19 to get healthy again. At 19 I should have been auditioning for companies, but instead I had to close the book on my dream and get healthy. Luckily I was able to get healthy and have had a 9 year professional streak, but I think my best dancing years were spent not dancing.

I share my personal story, in hopes to give you some signs of what a really severe eating disorder might look like so perhaps you can observe your daughter's behaviors, and if she is showing any of these behaviors it should be a red flag. I wouldn't try to 'force' any changes or 'make' your daughter do anything, because it could have a negative effect. Any time I would be 'forced' to eat something, I would abuse double the laxatives than I normally would I'd also, often times, scratch myself and physically abuse my body because of my lack of "self-control"...

The ballet world right now is changing and there are many premier dancers who showing more muscular bodies: Misty Copeland, Marianela Nunez, Gillian Murphy etc and dancers are more open now about ballet and their bodies.

Here are a few interview articles. Maybe just share them with your daughter. Each of these articles mention body image and how these dancers struggled but over came those issues in a healthy way...both of who are some of the top names in ballet! I think sharing these types of articles with her (and maybe not on the premise of 'oh look these ballerinas eat' but rather 'hey I found this cool article on your favorite dancer, have you read it?' Would be beneficial.

Marianela Nunez Interview: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/11327851/Marianela-Nunez-The-biggest-myth-about-dancers-is-that-we-dont-eat.-Im-always-eating.html

Misty Copeland Interview: http://www.teenvogue.com/my-life/profiles/2014-02/misty-copeland-ballerina/?slide=1

Misty Copeland Interview: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/unlikely-ballerina

I think body image is always a struggle for dancers...even me, I still have my days where I feel 'fat' and it's hard to over come that feeling, especially when you're forced to wear a leotard all day. But at the end of the day, I've learned that food isn't the enemy. I have a blog online that I use to share fitness/recipes and workouts for dancers. It's just a fun hobby of mine (it's pretty new just started it last year). I do it for myself because I still have my own fitness goals that I want to accomplish- http://fitterinaballerina.wordpress.com but I do have a note on there to struggling dancers. I've shared some of my favorite recipes and things too.

My food diary is also public, if you go back to 2013 and 2014 I was logging the most and dancing a lot, it might give you an idea of some fun snacks, how much I was eating to sustain my work load etc...

If you have any other questions or concerns please don't hesitate to message me on here.

I hope this helps!

A dish I love making that stores well and reheats fast in quinoa. I cook it in a little rice cooker, and after it is done I add a tbs of raw olive oil per dry cup of quinoa, 1 tsp knorr granulated chicken stock and some ground dried rosemary. It only takes 30 seconds to nuke a serving in the microwave and you can add scrambled eggs for protein for a morning dish. I also love to throw in diced onion and other veggies. Maybe other good carbs like some oatmeal. Some gram and go banana and oatmeal muffins, or pancakes. You can cook em up and freeze em in batches.