(66) THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DANCE TRAINING, BODY COMPOSITION, AND DIET: A CONTINUATION OF THE INTERCOLLEGIATE ARTISTIC ATHLETE RESEARCH ASSESSMENT STUDY

Collegiate dancers spend hours training for technique classes, rehearsals, and performances. As a result, performance nutrition has become increasingly important to maintain energy levels, fat-free mass, and support performance and recovery. While it is well accepted that more personalized nutritional support would benefit the performing arts, to date, few studies have focused on training loads and nutritional habits for artistic athletes and even less have focused on the collegiate setting where there are additional academic stressors that impact energy demands. A more thorough assessment of collegiate dancers’ semester training loads and nutritional habits provides insight into the current setting and helps identify areas of concern to further investigate and target.

Purpose: To evaluate the relationship between semester training loads, body composition, and dietary profiles in female collegiate dancers in dance programs throughout the United States.

Methods: Thirty-six female collegiate dancers from three different university dance programs (20.4±1.05 yrs; 165.4±.11.3 cm, BMI 21.3±3.4 kg/m²) participated in “The Intercollegiate Artistic Athlete Research Assessment (TIAARA)” Study. We assessed dance time during the semester, body composition (InBody 270), and a 30-day, habitual dietary intake (National Institute of Health’s Diet History Questionnaire III) for total calories (kcal) and macronutrient composition. Data were analyzed and reported for descriptive (means ± SD) and frequency statistics. One-tailed Pearson correlations (r) were computed for body composition and dietary intake variables (p< 0.05).

Results: Collegiate dancers were enrolled in an average of 16±2.09 semester credits, with 7.7±3.8 credits as dance coursework. Dancers reported additional dance-rehearsal time each week (3.0±1.3 days/week) for performance pieces (pp) (3.0±1.5 pp). Body composition assessments included fat mass (24.4±6.8%), fat-free mass (42.4±10.1 kg), and total body water (32.6±4.6 L). Habitual diet reflected a low-calorie diet (1399±491 kcal) with ~20% of dancers consuming a very low-calorie diet ≤1000kcal daily, including 2 dancers consuming < 500 kcal/day. Macronutrient assessments included dietary protein (54.3±26.5 g), fat (26.8±13.7 g), and carbohydrate (171.8±77.8 g). To assess the relationship between body composition and diet, FFM was positively correlated with total energy intake (r=0.333, p=0.036), total dietary protein (g) (r=0.349, p=0.029, leucine intake (g) (r=0.352, p=0.028).

Conclusion: Despite high energy and performance demands, collegiate female dancers were under consuming total calories and were below current sport nutrition recommendations for all macronutrients, particularly dietary protein levels. Further analyses demonstrated a positive relationship between FFM and total calorie intake, total protein intake, and total leucine intake, highlighting the importance of food quantity and quality to support body composition. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: These results call to attention the importance of addressing performance nutrition with collegiate dancers and the benefit of highlighting essential nutrients needed for performance and recovery such as total calories, dietary protein, and nutrient quality. They also emphasize the need for more specific analyses, such as targeted metabolic testing, to close the gap between food frequency questionnaires and much needed energy expenditure assessments in the performing arts.  

Acknowledgements: None