Ballet: A cause of Anorexia?

        I recently read a post on how ballet has been connected to both childhood and adult anorexia, for quite sometime. The reason being is that, in ballet, dancers are told to achieve  this "ideal" body type,  aka, "the balanchine body". This body shape consists of short torsos and long limbs and necks. Bascially they have to be extremely thin. Dancers are usually so skinny that they have "feather like movements".
        Anorexia is a severe eating disorder in which one either eats the bare minimum, enough to survive, or stops eating altogether. It is said that most parents put their children in ballet for them to develop proper posture, grace & elegance. In fact, one of my good friends, Karen, has taken ballet since she was a little girl and says that her mom first enrolled her to fix her posture.

    Although ballet does have positive aspects, there are also many negative side effects.  In the post I read the author wrote "ballet dancers usually develop eating disorders at an early age because their instructor tells them that they are too heavy or too fat to move properly or to look professional in the costumes. Girls then develop unhealthy eating habits or they stop eating completely to quickly lose the weight." This is horrible, yet true. By having someone contantly tell you that your body isn't the way it should be, you become discourgaged and will try anything to lose the weight. This is how they develop eating disorders such as anorexia.