There are 24 hours in a day.

I dance 16 or more hours a week.

When you subtract eight hours of sleep, 

that’s an entire day of dance.

An entire day of staring at yourself in the mirror.

Growing up at the dance studio you get used to looking at yourself all the time.

You don’t really think much of it 

when you start to think your legs are too big,

when you start to measure your legs to make sure they’re an okay size.

But you don’t really know what an okay size is.

People dream of the silhouette forced upon a dancer.

To be skinny.

To have muscle tone, but not be bulky.

They don’t understand how much work is put into that,

and how dancers feel when they don’t look like that.

In the end, dancers will keep dancing,

whether they love their bodies or not.

So something needs to change

in order to keep dancers healthy and safe.

Whether they’re on or off-stage.