Bone Loss
Dancers depend on their bones and skeletal system. Bones in turn depend on key nutrients and micronutrients to maintain their density and their ability to carry out the dancers' often extreme demands. Because bone is living tissue, a thorough understanding of how bone density is created and maintained is essential for all dancers. Female dancers need to be especially aware of the impact of diet, lifestyle, and hormones on their bones. A clinically defined syndrome known as Female Athlete Triad refers to the three main variables that impact female bone mineral densities including disordered eating, irregular menstrual cycles, and osteoporosis. The triad itself also refers to energy availability, menstrual function, and bone health (Mountjoy et al., 2014). Bone health can be easily conceptualized as the balance between dietary energy intakes and energy expenditures. Maintaining balance and biological equilibrium can promote maximum health in professional dancers. Because the triad can affect male professional dancers as well as females, the IOC has recently...
The recommended new term is Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) (Mountjoy, et al., 2014). Framed as RED-S, it becomes easier to conceptualize bone health in terms of nutritional variables that impact both genders.
Nutrition is closely linked to good bone health among all populations, and nutrition can be especially relevant to populations that place inordinate stress on bone systems. The estimated 38,000 professional dancers (and "countless" amateurs) in the United States therefore stand to benefit from education and awareness related to nutrition and hormonal balance related to bone density and bone health (Hoch, et al., 2011, p. 2). Dancers have lower body fat relative to the general population and subsequently a decreased risk for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (Friesen, et al., 2011). However, dancers also have a higher than average incidence rate of eating disorders (Friesen et al., 2011). Female dancers also have a…
