Dancers have always been portrayed as impossibly thin, bones protruding in the likeness of a swan that glides across the stage effortlessly. We are delicate, sensitive, impossibly strong (contrarily), and beautiful. I was aware of these expectations since I first began dancing at the age of 6 but at the time, I didn't give them much thought. I met these expectations when I was a child but, because all of my meals were monitored and controlled by my parents, I did not have the

As a dancer I had witnessed it. There’s a point when the statement “you look fit” doesn’t apply any longer. At that point there’s a shift to “she is too skinny”. I had dealt with it in my close group of friends in dance and again in high school. When I created my own dance programme I coined the motto “creating positive dance experiences” and tried to integrate that into our programme. I understood that FUN had to be the driving force for kids wanting to dance and worked with