REDs is not just a dancer's problem: Why leadership matters
By Paula Archangelo-Cakir
I often hear conversations about Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) framed around a single question: What should dancers do differently?
It is an understandable question, but increasingly, I wonder whether it is the wrong place to start.
As a former professional dancer, psychologist, organisational leader, and researcher in workplace wellbeing, I have become interested in a different question: What conditions are we creating around dancers in the first place?
While REDs is often discussed as an individual health issue, I believe it is equally a leadership issue, a cultural issue, and ultimately an organisational issue.
We often assume that if people are given enough information, they will make healthy choices, yet in every other context we understand that information alone rarely changes behaviour:
People make decisions within systems.
Workplaces influence behaviour.
Schools influence behaviour.
Families influence behaviour.
Dance environments do the same.
The question therefore becomes not only what dancers know, but whether their environments allow them to act on that knowledge.
The impact of dance environments at a young age
One aspect of the REDs conversation that deserves greater attention is the age at which many dancers enter intensive training.
Many begin vocational training during adolescence, a period characterised by identity development, increasing independence, and heightened sensitivity to social influence.
Some move away from home at an age when many of their peers are still living with their families. Others relocate to different cities or even different countries in pursuit of opportunities.
In these circumstances, teachers, artistic staff, healthcare professionals, and senior dancers often become some of the most influential adults in a young person's life.
This matters because young dancers are not only learning technique, they are learning what success, professionalism, commitment, health and sacrifice looks like.
The messages they receive during this period can shape beliefs and behaviours for years to come.
For this reason, conversations about REDs cannot focus solely on educating individual dancers, we must also consider the responsibility of the adults and organisations that help shape their understanding of what is normal.
Valuable qualities vs self-sacrifice
For decades, dance has celebrated qualities such as dedication, discipline, resilience, and persistence. These qualities are genuinely valuable. They help dancers achieve remarkable things.
The difficulty arises when dedication becomes confused with self-sacrifice.
Many dancers grow up learning messages such as:
‘Push through fatigue’
‘Do not complain’
‘Do not fall behind’
‘Be grateful for opportunities’
‘Stay employable’
‘Stay thin’
Most of these messages are never formally taught, many are never spoken directly, but they become embedded in culture, and culture often shapes behaviour more powerfully than information.
A dancer may understand the risks associated with low energy availability perfectly and still struggle to make different choices if their environment consistently rewards behaviours that increase those risks.
This is why leadership matters.
The importance of shared leadership
Leadership responsibility extends beyond information-sharing, leaders are not simply responsible for providing knowledge, but they are responsible for shaping culture.
Every rehearsal schedule, conversation about bodies, casting decision, response to injury, and reaction when a dancer expresses concern sends a message.
Young dancers are paying attention to these messages, often far more closely than we realise.
Together, these messages shape what psychologists describe as the motivational climate.
Some climates empower, others disempower.
Empowering environments support learning, development, autonomy, competence, and wellbeing. Disempowering environments rely more heavily on comparison, fear, control, and conditional approval.
The environment itself can become either a protective factor or a risk factor.
From this perspective, REDs cannot be viewed simply as a nutritional issue, it is a systems issue.
Consider a dancer who understands the importance of nutrition and recovery.
Can they access appropriate food during the day? Do schedules allow sufficient time to eat? Do they feel safe discussing concerns? Can they seek help without fear of appearing weak, difficult, or unprofessional? Will they be judged if their body changes? Do leaders model healthy behaviours themselves?
The answers to these questions are not determined solely by the dancer, but they are largely determined by the environment.
This is why responsibility must be shared by dancers, parents, healthcare professionals, teachers, organisations and leaders.
The challenge is not deciding who is responsible, the challenge is recognising that nobody can solve the problem alone.
The challenges of dance leadership
One of the realities of the dance profession is that many leaders are former dancers themselves.
This is one of the profession's greatest strengths, as former dancers bring tremendous experience, artistic knowledge, and understanding. However, they also bring assumptions formed through their own training.
We often teach as we were taught and we often lead as we were led, and sometimes we continue practices not because they were consciously chosen, but because they feel familiar.
This is not about blame, it is about reflection.
Previous generations cared deeply about dancers.
The question is whether we are willing to examine which practices continue to serve dancers and which no longer do.
Building environments that support healthy behaviour
In my own work, I have become increasingly interested in the concept of psychological safety.
Psychological safety does not mean comfort or the absence of challenge, it means feeling able to speak honestly without fear of humiliation, exclusion, or punishment.
It means a dancer can say:
"I am exhausted."
"I am struggling."
"I need support."
"My period has stopped."
"I do not think this is healthy."
Without psychological safety, these conversations do not happen, and if these conversations do not happen, prevention becomes almost impossible.
Education is equally important, but education should not be directed solely at dancers. Parents, teachers, healthcare professionals, administrators, and leaders all need education.
Knowledge becomes truly powerful when entire systems understand and support it, and this requires moving beyond awareness campaigns toward structural prevention.
When I speak about structural prevention, I mean designing environments that support healthy behaviour rather than relying entirely on individual willpower.
It means realistic scheduling, access to appropriate healthcare expertise, transparent communication, leadership development, safeguarding systems and recovery being built into the culture rather than treated as an optional extra.
Wellbeing and performance are not competing priorities
Perhaps the most important lesson from REDs is that wellbeing and performance are not competing priorities.
For too long, dance has often treated them as though they are, yet the evidence and experience increasingly suggest the opposite.
Healthy dancers recover more effectively, they remain in the profession longer, they are more resilient and are better positioned to thrive.
The future of dance does not depend on asking dancers to become more resilient to unhealthy environments, it depends on creating healthier environments in the first place.
Especially for the young dancers who leave home early, move across countries, place enormous trust in the adults around them, and arrive believing that the people leading them know what is best.
Leadership is not only about directing performance, it teaches people what is normal and when it comes to REDs, that may be one of the most important responsibilities leaders have.
Ultimately, the goal is not simply to prevent REDs, it is to create a culture in which health, development, artistry, and performance can genuinely coexist.
That is not a compromise on excellence, it is what sustainable excellence looks like.