<p>Also, I would add that these girls who are doing competitive cheering all seem to be HEALTHY. I don’t think the body type of cheerleading is like the body type of ballerinas at all! </p>
<p>And, having had 3 boys in sports for 15 years, including football and weightlifting, I can honestly say that never once have any of them been encouraged to take a performance enhancing drug. Maybe those pockets of poisonous culture aren’t around here (thank heavens).</p>
<p>“I don’t think it’s confined to just these areas. Unfortunately, we have Top Model, Project Runway, Ana and AnaMia websites, fashion magazines all reinforcing the idea”</p>
<p>Oh, definitely. It’s just very difficult to control those, whereas it’s within a parent’s power to find supportive, healthy sports programs for their kids. Which is what most do.</p>
<p>Well if we are talking about cheerleading, I don’t think this is where you’ll find the body image issues. You can’t be anorexic and throw ‘two to fulls’ or ‘standing backs’ for hours at a time.</p>
<p>I’m sure that most athletes take their training diet seriously, but you wouldn’t believe the extraordinary athletic feats that anorexics can be capable of. I’m thinking of Gelsey Kirkland dancing star turns with NYCB and ABT while eating a third of an apple for each meal. I’m sure the cocaine helped, but still; she spent years achieving technical feats no one else could do, and no one realized she was starving herself.</p>
<p>(NYCB under Balanchine belongs on any list of poisonous cultures.)</p>
<p>I would think the coke would have been the PRIMARY reason she was able to perform physically despite being malnourished.</p>
<p>Also, a ballerina doesn’t have to lift a flyer into an overhead extended position. If Gelsey Kirkland had been a cheerleader, she would not have been able to perform, with that secret, for the number of years she did.</p>
<p>Coke only controls the brain – especially your ability to work through pain. It cannot create glucose out of thin air and feed working muscles.</p>
<p>"a ballerina doesn’t have to lift a flyer into an overhead extended position. "</p>
<p>Neither does a flyer. Aren’t they cheerleaders, too?</p>
<p>I think you underestimate the muscular strength involved in the kind of star performances Gelsey was doing. But if you’re not convinced, Christy Heinrich, Kathy Johnson, and Kathy Rigby – all superstar international-level gymnasts – acknowledged struggling with eating disorders during their competitive years. Christy’s the only one who lost her career (and life) to anorexia, but all of them were doing amazing things on the vault and floor while eating in a very abnormal way.</p>
<p>it just occured to me
when I was in junior high- the cheerleaders- or at least a 1/3 of them, were also on school sports teams- we didn’t have a lot- gymnastics and tennis mostly)
the girls teams didn’t usually compete at the same time as boys so there wasn’t a conflict-
same with high school ( some were also cheerleaders in high school if I remember)- and we didn’t have eating disorders in the 70s- remember we were teenagers- we had fast metabolisms!
I remember eating 2 sandwiches everyday when I came home from track practice and I weighed 105- funny when I stopped running track- I still was in the habit… ;)</p>
<p>Hanna - In all girl competitive squads, flyers are usually much younger or naturally shorter than the bases. Most are pretty muscular and, on the elite squads, required to tumble. Starved girls of normal height are not the norm for flyers…it isn’t aesthetically pleasing and they can’t do the work. For partner stunting, you’ll find most flyers to be extremely muscular and short with a strong gymnastic background. So basically, flyers aren’t up there just taking a ride…they are working hard. You have to be fit to fly. In all my years, I have never heard of a coach asking a flyer to lose weight. The bases are asked to do strength training and the girls are positioned according to body type (heavy girls base, tall girls backspot, short girls front) so that the flyer’s weight isn’t a factor. In fact, my d has been told repeatedly by coaches she should be able to base a flyer that weighs as much as she does. </p>
<p>My d’s cheerleading gym also trains nationally-ranked gymnasts. Those girls are amazing sturdy and look very well fed. Not to say that some don’t have psychologically unhealthy relationship with food…I wouldn’t know that. But there is a direct negative relationship between malnutrition and performance. Most girls who are that competitive and are at that level are pretty scientific about the quality of their food in order to maximize performance.</p>
<p>I do agree there have been eating disorder tragedies in the gymnastics world…that is not to be disputed. But I don’t think the sport is the villain. And in my experience, I don’t think it is even a problem in cheerleading.</p>
<p>“flyers aren’t up there just taking a ride”</p>
<p>Did I say they were? You said that “cheerleaders” have to lift others up, and therefore it isn’t like ballet. Flying is a lot like ballet – although I’ve never seen a flyer hold an arabesque on point for 16 counts, as Gelsey Kirkland did eight shows a week.</p>
<p>“I don’t think the sport is the villain.”</p>
<p>So you agree with me. That’s why I referred to “supportive, healthy sports programs.”</p>
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<p>But those are all extreme cases (not recent either). Gymnastics has certainly changed a lot since then, partly culturally as a reaction to certain events and partially just because the sport keeps moving forward difficulty wise. I think you’d find the body type of top seniors today is different from the body types when artistic gymnastics was less powerhouse, more artistic. Alicia Sacramone, Mohini Bhardwaj, Chellsie Memmel, Annia Hatch…all more muscular. Nastia Liukin does have the rhythmic gymnastics/ballet body type, all legs, but so does her mother and her father has a slight build as well. Can’t rule anything out but I wouldn’t be surprised if her size isn’t largely genetic. </p>
<p>I also think you have to differentiate between anorexia and disordered eating habits (due to pressure to lose weight). Christy Heinrich was anorexic, no doubt in my mind. She died from a disease that she just couldn’t overcome. I really look at that case and how hard she struggled, and I think it’s really hard to say that without gymnastics, she would have been just fine. Anorexia is not confined to gymnastics, so certainly the possibility exists. We’ll never know, but although in that instance gymnastics was the trigger, she never stopped being anorexic. She was out of gymnastics, never thinking of doing it again, and the disease still consumed her. Meanwhile (however unhealthy and wrong it is) dropping weight “to make weight” (which goes in wrestling WAY more than gymnastics BTW…the sport of wrestling is based on the concept of weight classes. But those are boys so it goes unnoticed) isn’t anorexia. It’s not a disease. Could it eventually send someone with the potential for becoming anorexic over the edge? No doubt. But lots of things could, things as small as seeing their mother diet or hearing older girls make remarks. Likely the origins aren’t monocausal but probably build up. </p>
<p>The vast majority of gymnastics is far more innocuous than public perception would have you think. First of all 90% of those who start don’t even get to a relatively low competitive level compared to what you see on TV. The truth is, in the end, some of what you hear isn’t completely innocent parents who were blindsided by these evil coaches. In a lot of these “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes” type instances it’s probably more than 50% the parents. Most level headed parents navigate gymnastics just fine. And I’ve seen the best and nicest coaches, and situations where a kid is messed up and it’s all the parents. That would happen no matter what they were doing. This isn’t unique to gymnastics. You have your steroids and protein shakes in other sports (football). On the TLC special about sports parents the one football dad was making his kid run bleachers in the morning at 8 yrs old and he’s not the only one.</p>
<p>Again Hanna - anorexia is not a common side effect of cheerleading. It just isn’t. My observations have been that flyers do not feel the pressure to starve themselves; though I do agree this is a problem pervasive in classical dance. My issue with competitive cheerleading is not that girls run the risk of becoming anorexic. Instead I oppose the idea that it is necessary to wear ‘suggestive’ clothing in order to demonstrate skill and worth. And I think stunting is becoming extreme causing unnecessary risk to flyer and base…that is where the danger in cheerleading lies, not in the risk of developing an eating disorder.</p>
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<p>Crossed posts…but I do agree with the comments about wrestling. My husband was a college wrestler and starving, vomiting, laxatives, spending dangerous amounts of time in the sauna…were all common among the guys as they struggled to cut weight before weigh in.</p>
<p>“starving, vomiting, laxatives, spending dangerous amounts of time in the sauna”</p>
<p>I’ve seen a lot of this in competitive rowing.</p>
<p>Can we stop trying to say which sport or activity is more strenuous or more open to abuse, please? I could cite studies that show that the two most physically strenuous activities are (drum roll, please) football and ballet. Would that convince anyone? No. Unless you’ve spent your hours tumbling, tossing and flying, you don’t know how strenuous competitive cheerleading is. And unless you’ve spent 20 hours a week balancing on your toes with your legs in ridiculously unnatural positions, trying to make it look easy, you don’t know how strenuous serious ballet is (at least for females). Does it really matter?</p>
<p>In terms of the topic of this thread, I think there are two different worlds that we’re talking about. The first is cheerleading at sporting events. The second is cheerleading as a competitive sport in its own right. As long as cheerleaders “cheer on” other competitors, they should cheer those competitors regardless of sex. And they will continue to be seen as a sideline or distraction event, not the main activity. Competitive cheering, on the other hand, held for its own sake and without the “distraction” of the real game taking place on the court or the field, is a terrific sport and deserves the same respect as any other passionate activity. (Of course, it also should obey similar safety requirements, which unfortunately too many teams do not.)</p>
<p>But other sports under the performance umbrella (gymnastics, tumbling, whatever) exhibition. Competitive cheerleading evolved as the reverse sort of, taking the exhibition routines and making it a competition. But still, cheering at games for other sports is the exhibition part of cheerleading. Most of these high school teams compete and exhibition. Around here, cheering does football and basketball (girls and boys), and random other events like It’s Academic, whatever fits in the schedule. The original question “must cheerleaders cheer equally”, I think they should, but I don’t think they “have” to do anything. </p>
<p>Cheering at football games is partly tradition but you also don’t get that crowd at any other event. “Must” people attend all sporting events equally? They don’t. And the way high school sports schedules are, it would be impossible to cheer at every event. </p>
<p>I don’t see why cheering at games deserves less respect than competitive cheering, since they still put effort and practice into coming up with an appropriate performance for the game setting. Unless you mean high school cheerleading deserves less respect than club cheerleading (although most high schools compete as well as performing at games). Either way, the point of the sport/activity/whatever you want to call it is to perform. Is a dance recital less deserving of respect than a dance competition? In competitive dance they tend to exhibition through recitals as well as do competitions. Both require a lot of practice and planning to put on a good performance and the aim is to put on a good performance (whether you’re being judged or energizing a crowd).</p>
<p>“Can we stop trying to say which sport or activity is more strenuous or more open to abuse, please?”</p>
<p>Chedva - I think the comments about strenuous activity had nothing to do with which was more…or at least my point was not that. My point was (‘drum roll’…), in competitive cheerleading, there is not the focus on weight and the body line aesthetic and therefore, not the propensity for girls to develop eating disorders that is so often a problem in classical dance/ballet. Which WAS the debate at hand, btw…</p>
<p>Sorry if I misread the discussion; I know it started with eating disorders but then started talking about the nature of the activity and why a cheerleader couldn’t cheer with anorexia but a dancer could dance. Just my interpretation.</p>
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<p>It’s not the “competitive” nature of competitive cheerleading that differentiates it to me. It’s whether the activity is primary or secondary. Is it the reason that the crowd is there, or is it an “extra”? Whether it’s a dance competition or a dance recital, dance is in the spotlight. You can’t have either without the dancers. In competitive cheerleading or exhibition cheerleading, cheering is in the spotlight. But in game cheering, the game is in the spotlight and the cheerleaders are just “window dressing”. The vast majority of the crowd is there to see the game. You can have a football or basketball game without the cheerleaders. That’s why I say that cheerleaders won’t be respected as athletes as long as they are a secondary, adjunct activity.</p>
<p>(And by the way, I’m not a big fan of dance competitions, either. Cheerleading is a sport. Dance is an art, not a sport.)</p>
<p>I see what you’re saying. I just don’t really agree. If I ever decided to go to a football game, probably the only part I’d find remotely interesting would be the cheering. I understand this is not be the case for most people but with strong squads it’s certainly interesting to many. The original point of cheerleading was to cheer. That’s where the sport aspect has evolved from. The “art” so to speak, is leading the crowd. Which is what they do at games as well. JMO.</p>
<p>I’ve been on Varsity Cheerleading for 4 years and we are required to cheer for both girl’s and boy’s basketball games. My team was recently interviewed by the news after they made this discovery.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t mind cheering for the girl’s games. They are a very talented group of individuals and I technically get to watch from the front row.</p>
<p>I know that they dislike our presence and distractions, but we don’t have a choice.</p>
<p>A hundred-and-thirty-eight, well -nine now, posts and this thread still runs on?</p>
<p>I nearly posted this a hundred entries ago – how about the Pep squads (cheer leaders, song leaders, mascot, etc.) divide up all the significant sporting events and send two or three pepsters to each? It’s what ours did back in the Pleistocene. Football and especially our championship boy’s basketball teams attracted the whole squad. Swimming had two (for the 25 spectators who turned out). It’s SO simple…</p>
<p>Good point, but I guess the problem with that today is all the rules and regulations about traveling to sporting events. Today in order for those two kids to go, they would need an adult - and if there’s only one coach there’s still the same problem. Each activity has to have a specific person in charge, at least here, so I don’t think that they would allow them to just be under the supervision of whoever is in charge of the team competing that night, even though that’s completely stupid. I guess they have their own liability reasons. They’re very strict here. If the bus comes and our coach is still in the building, we aren’t allowed to get on the bus until she does first. Why, I don’t know, since it isn’t moving until she comes, but there are a lot of rules like that. </p>
<p>Although if they would allow the two or three to just go then that would work. I’m just not convinced a lot of school systems would accept that.</p>