Clear glass food storage meal prepping containers with fresh berries, carrots, fruits, vegetables and meat on white background.

Mealtime Strategies for Your Busiest Dance Days

While cooking from scratch is often touted as the ideal approach to healthy eating, it’s not always feasible for dancers during busy rehearsal and performance periods. Elaborate home-cooked meals are also not the be-all and end-all of nutritious eating. Particularly when time is scarce, turning to nutritious snacks and relying on packaged and frozen foods can be part of a healthy eating plan, offering convenience without sacrificing nutrition.

a female washing vegetables at a sink

A Dancer’s Guide to Healthy Eating While Healing

A healthy approach to eating during recovery involves an abundance and a variety of foods that offer the body tools to support tissue repair, muscle building, energy replenishment, and immunity. In addition to nutrition, it’s important that dancers focus on mindset—and the ability to stay motivated and confident—during injury recovery.

an iPad with a cafeteria good food article displayed

Why Cultivating Food Flexibility is Crucial for Your Health

Just as nutrition is important to a dancer’s fuel plan, eating patterns that support a dancer’s relationship with food can have an incredible impact on performance potential onstage and in the studio. Yet research suggests that dancers are three times more likely to struggle with an eating disorder than the general population. This often involves inflexibility around foods that diet culture deems to be “bad” or “unhealthy,” like processed foods or desserts.

a hand holding a smartphone to take a photo of the food on the table

3 Reasons to Scroll Past “What I Eat in a Day” Posts

While the intent behind “What I Eat in a Day” posts is often harmless, the reality is that they can lay the groundwork for a dancer’s struggle with food. Dancers are already more vulnerable to harmful food and body beliefs that risk disordered eating—adding another source for comparison can leave dancers feeling doubtful.

Female dancer wearing a white tutu dancing in front of black backdrop

Ballerina and Health Coach Sarah Lane Shares Her Spanish-Influenced Sweet and Salty Lentil Soup

Lane’s approach to cooking is closely paired with her interest in nutrition. Since leaving ABT she’s had the chance to turn that passion into a profession. In addition to guesting with companies worldwide, during the pandemic Lane received her nutrition health coach certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and now works regularly with other dancers.