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Is the Volochkova story good for ballet?


Alexandra

  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. Is the Volochkova story good for ballet?

    • Yes
      11
    • No
      31
    • It depends, see my answer below.
      9
    • I hate yes/no polls. I abstain.
      1


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Alexandra, I stand corrected. You are absolutely right. :)

I agree with the vicious cycle comment. The media wants to give us what they think we want to hear even if it isn't really the story or even if it isn't really good journalism.

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Alexandra, forgive me if this gets slightly off topic, but I did want to respectfully disagree about the BMI factor. BMI is very, very, very relative. There are men such as Mel Gibson or Sylvester Stallone whose BMI factors are greater than what is considered healthy/normal, etc., due in large part to the fact that they are more well muscled than the average Joe. At the same time, there are BMIs that might be considered too low, but remember that percentages for figures such as body fat have been raised in conjunction with the American AVERAGE going up, not because it's necessarily healthy. Not too many years ago, the norm or desirable range for women was 20-25%. Then it was raised to 30% due to increases in obesity in this country.

For the past 12 years, since I first started having these measurements performed on an annual basis, I have remained at 15%. I assure you I have more than enough meat on the bone, and that it has not affected my female functioning in any way.

The point I really want to stress here is that this story and others like it should not get us riled up to the point of creating extremely polarized choices here -- i.e., that the very real problem we do have with some dancers's quest for a dangerously thin body induce us to forget that there is another very real problem in this country -- that of obesity with its concomitant problems of diabetes, heart disease, etc. There is room for low BMIs, the same as there is for higher BMIs, when the individual circumstances warrant.

I don't think the media even knows what story it wants to tell in the first place. It just wants ratings/viewers no matter how garbled the story. Let's not play into its misdirected hands by choosing 'sides' with regard to an issue that is relative, and is not even the real issue with regard at least to this particular dancer.

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ITA with dirac. The Tonya/Nancy saga definitely helped create a major skating boom, at least in the US. It didn't hurt that the attack coincided with a number of succesful American skaters (ex. Brian Boitano, Kristi Yamaguchi, Paul Wylie, Scott Hamilton, and eventually Canadian Kurt Browning) being at the top of their game in the pro ranks. Unfortunately the pro scene has drastically declined since, with more skaters choosing to remain in "eligible" competition, and those who have turned pro not performing up to par (especially the ladies).

I guess time will tell about Volchkova (following current skating, I have a hard time thinking Anastasia instead of Victoria). :unsure:

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