Video Diary of experiment

This is the video account of my experiment.

Experiment into nutrition for dancers

Introduction

‘To perform at their best, dancers need to be well fuelled for classes, rehearsals, and performances.’ Clarkson (2005)

This ‘fuel’ comes from the food we eat. Yet, when I carried out an inquiry into dancer’s body image and nutrition I found that dancers sometimes turn to unhealthy nutritional choices in order to fit an ‘ideal’ way of looking.

For female dancers, in particular, an aspect of this ‘ideal’ look is to be slim and the majority of dancers I asked had dieted in order to achieve this. Although most had dieted sensibly, some had not and in some cases their extreme dieting led to disordered eating. Due to this, I decided to participate in an experiment to see whether (as dancers) the foods we eat affect our performance.

Method

For three Thursdays in a row (November 17^th, November 24^th and December 1^st 2011) I attended the same dance class at Amsterdam Dance Centre and each Thursday I tried out a different diet plan to see if what I ate, or did not eat, affected my performance in the dance class. To make the test fair I went to bed the same time the night before and woke up at the same time every day. I also ate my meals at the same time every day, except for on the third Thursday because I ate nothing. I chose to do this on Thursdays because I do not work on this day. This meant that I could keep my levels of physical activity to a minimum until the class at night. I regulated the test in like this because how many hours of sleep I had, when I ate my meals and how much physical activity I had done during the day could potentially affect my performance in the class. My schedule for the first and second Thursday looked like this:

1:00: Went to bed

9:30: Woke up

10:00: Ate breakfast

13:00: Ate lunch

18:30: Ate dinner

20:45 – 22:15: Attended dance class

I kept a video diary of what I ate, why I ate it and how I felt throughout the day which I will be uploading to my YouTube account shortly and I will post the link here too.

Diet Day 1

The first Thursday I ate meals that were relatively high in carbohydrates. Clarkson (2003) states that ‘a dancer’s diet should be composed of about 55-60% carbohydrate…carbohydrate is the major energy source in muscles.’ Clarkson (2003). 

I referred to carbohydrate-counter.org to ensure the foods I was consuming were high in carbohydrates. For breakfast I ate Weetabix and a banana, for lunch I ate a tuna and salad sandwich on whole wheat bread.

For dinner I chose to prepare a risotto from a recipe specifically designed for dancers. It was created by Jasmine Challis who has a degree in nutrition and a post graduate diploma in dietetics which allowed her to become a dietician. She has worked with dancers for over 20 years now and she is dedicated to giving dancers information and advice on how to eat healthily so they can perform at their best. This recipe is included in the ‘main meals’ section of Dance UK’s Healthier Dancer Programme. Dance UK was set up to educate dancers about areas of their practice they may need advice on.

This is the recipe I followed, Challis identified some ingredients as ‘either/or’ so I have only included what I actually used in my risotto.

‘Ingredients (for 2 people)

½ onion, cut up finely
4 mushrooms sliced
½ pepper - any colour - chopped
½ cup of sweetcorn - frozen
4 tomatoes
2 diced chicken breasts
1 teacup uncooked rice - quick cook brown/basmati are good choices
1 tsp oil
Pepper/herbs/spices to taste
2 cups of made up stock’ Challis (2011)

There are also recipes by Challis for breakfast and lunch on Dance UK’s website but I chose to only to follow a recipe for dinner because the majority of her meals are geared towards dancers who are facing heavy workloads with emphasis being on “healthy fast food” Challis ( 2009). As my day was not filled with physical activity I decided that I would create my own ‘high carbohydrate’ meals for breakfast and lunch and use one of hers for dinner. I referred to carbohydrate-counter.org to ensure the foods I was eating were high in carbohydrates.

Diet Day 2

When I was first thinking about doing this experiment, on the second Thursday, I was going to follow a diet consisting of traditionally ‘unhealthy food’ i.e. fast food. However, that was before I really learnt about the significance of carbohydrates and since those kinds of foods are often packed with carbohydrates I would probably feel fine to do a class after a day of eating this. Obviously, food like this is not recommended to be eaten everyday but since my experiment lasts only one day I decided to change it. Also, while carrying out my inquiry dancers told me they had dieted by cutting out carbohydrates. Furthermore, during discussions with my special interest group (students on my course who are studying a similar area as me) a members of my professional network (dancers I am working with) three dancers told me separately that they had been told, while at professional dance colleges, to lose weight by cutting out carbohydrates in their diet completely. This would in fact help them to lose weight but could potentially affect their performance in the studio especially with long hours on physical training. However, in a situation like this, it is likely that the student will listen to the teacher because they are at college to learn from them. So I thought I would try a diet with very little carbohydrates in it.

Again, I referred to carbohydrate-counter.org to ensure I was keeping amount of carbohydrates I ate to a minimum. I also contacted a non-dancer friend of mine who I knew had been following the Atkins diet for a while and asked her to give me some direction on what to eat.

For breakfast I ate scrambled egg and raspberries. Some fruits are high in carbohydrates so I chose raspberries as these have the one of the lowest carbohydrate counts.

For lunch I ate three smoked salmon, cucumber and full fat cream cheese lettuce leaf wraps.

For dinner I ate broccoli, yellow pepper and bacon stir fry, obviously without noodles or rice.

Diet Day 3

The final diet, if you can call it a diet, was to eat nothing. This is because in my inquiry questionnaire 14.7% of participants admitted they had suffered from an eating disorder at some point and a further 23.5% stated that they did not know whether they had had one or not which I believe indicates they had some issues with food to have answered this way. Moreover, 97% of participants stated that they suspected another dancer who they knew personally of having one. Anorexia nervosa is one such eating disorder that dancers may suffer from. Anyone suffering from anorexia is most likely damaging their health. However, with the physical demands that dancers and other athletes put on their bodies the effects could be even worse,

“efforts to acquire their [athletes'] desired thinness reduce their energy and performance” Clark (2000)

I wanted to see for myself if and how eating noting affected my performance in the dance class.

Findings

I found the first diet easy to prepare for and stick to because on a normal day when I know I am taking a class, rehearsing, performing or going to the gym I will eat carbohydrates with every meal. This is something I do without thinking too much about it and I believe it comes from listening to what my body is telling me to eat. I found that I had lots of energy throughout the day and also during the dance class in the evening. The class was of a high standard and physically very demanding. I had never participated in this particular class before and I was glad that I was joining it for the first time having eaten carbohydrates that day so I knew what to expect in the forthcoming weeks.

One downside I found was that I got hungry during the afternoon between my lunch and dinner and I had not considered snacks as part of the diet. Snacking is strongly recommended by nutritionists and dieticians when levels of physical activity are particularly high.

“In addition to meals, other times when carbohydrate ingestion is important are before, during, and after class, rehearsal, or performance. A carbohydrate snack, such as a bagel or commercially available "energy" bars, can provide the added boost needed for optimal performance.” Clarkson (2005). However, due to the fact I was keeping physical activity levels low throughout the day I did not bargain for the need to snack. Perhaps, the reasons could be not taking in enough calories for breakfast and lunch. Ensuring the body is receiving enough calories is a very important part of nutrition for dancers. Following the advice of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, a dancer of my weight and age should eat no less than 2320 calories during an intensive training/rehearsal/performance period.

Again, because I made sure my day was not very physically demanding, and therefore I was not burning many calories, I thought the amount I had eaten to be enough. In hindsight I think I could have made this test better and fairer by examining calorie intake too. For example, I could have made sure that during diet day one and diet day two, I ate the same number of calories.

I found it more difficult to prepare for diet day two because I have never followed a diet that cuts out carbohydrates. In fact, I have only dieted once in my life and the only aspect I altered was portion size. I ate all the same foods just less of them. So, to me cutting out probably the food group I eat the most of seemed alien. It always felt as though a huge part of my meal was missing. However, I did feel full after each meal which surprised me but my energy levels did not feel as high as they had during the first diet day. Having said that, I am not sure whether this was only a placebo effect because I made up for the lack of carbohydrates by eating more proteins and fats. For example, normally I would not choose full fat cream cheese if I were to be eating it with a carbohydrate. In the afternoon I got hungry again but luckily I had been so full after two wraps at lunch time that I had one left over to eat. In terms of energy levels for the dance class I felt no different to diet day one.

Diet day three was very difficult, I felt that even sitting at home and working on the computer was challenging because it was hard to concentrate. In the end I ate a banana around 3pm, an apple at 6pm and a small bar of chocolate before I did the class because I felt dizzy and was concerned I would feel so ill that I would have to sit out of the lesson or even injure myself if I did not increase my energy. There is research to suggest that chocolate can give a person energy because it is high in calories and contains caffeine.

Although this temporarily helped my energy levels my performance in the class was nowhere near my best. The teacher even commented that I looked tired and I could not wait for the class to over. I know that eating the chocolate was ‘cheating’ in a sense but it got me through the class and I was not prepared to put my safety at stake by doing the class without eating something.

Further research                                                                                  

I have already mentioned that keeping track of calorie consumption could have been useful in this test. In future research a similar test could be carried out but with the main focus being on calorie consumption rather than carbohydrate consumption. For example, the first day I could eat 2000 calories, the second day I could eat 1500 and the last day I could eat 500. This would test the effects of the amount eaten on performance.

Another test that could prove useful in this area would be to try the diets for longer periods of time. I would not recommend anyone to try the diet three for longer than a day but it would be interesting to see whether I would see a difference in energy levels between diet one and two if I tried them out for a week instead of a day. Due to the fact that so many experts believe carbohydrates to be the most beneficial  food group in a dancer’s diet I would expect to feel less energised if I followed a ‘no carbohydrate’ diet for longer.