Talking about Body Image & Disordered Eating in Young Female Dancers Within Western Society

This questionnaire is meant for counselors to use as a guide to understanding the culture around body image and disordered eating within competitive dance for young girls. It is assumed that the client would be a young girl experiencing body image and/or disordered eating struggles due to competitive dance, to which the questionnaire will focus on identifying and understanding these feelings. These questions are meant to create an understanding, supportive, and open environment for this sensitive topic to be discussed and explored, while giving room for the client to express however much they feel they want to throughout the worksheet.

Based off the information given in the study by Doria & Numer (2022), there was two questionairres formed. The first questionairre is focused on body image questions, while the second is focused on eating habits. Both aim to target the main points that the authors present in the study that contribute towards dancers and their body image/ED, "this study employed a qualitative analysis to better understand the values, beliefs, and practices that the world of dance constitutes around body and body image... the project aimed to uncover the dominant and competing discourses related to body and body image in the world of dance. The findings from this research are intended to elucidate how EDBs in dancers are created and/or resisted, with the goal of better informing prevention initiatives targeted at reducing EDBs in young girls who are competitive dancers"(Doria & Numer, 2022).

The questions will consist of self-reflection and naming emotions, while working towards an understanding between the client and counselor. This questionnaire has the option to be worked on alone or with a counselor like described. The questions are supposed to gently help the client explore their feelings and experiences around the topic. If used with a counselor, this gives the counselor the opportunity to connect with the client culturally, if used alone it can give the opportunity for full transparency from the client if they understand the terms. It’s suggested that a brief introduction to what disordered eating/body image means should be conducted, prior to utilizing the questionnaire. Overall, the questions should provoke self awareness and honest reflection relating to body image and disordered eating for young women in competitive dance.