Will Dance Give My Daughter Body Image Issues? [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Will Dance Give My Daughter Body Image Issues?

Podcast Date: May 23, 2025

Listen Here: 

Watch Here: 

Description

Have you ever wondered if participating in dance could lead to body image issues? Heather talks to clients with a dance background and have body image issues from what a dance instructor said or from participating in an environment that is body-focused and competitive. Today, Heather interviews Mary Bawden, founder of DA:NCE an organization devoted to helping expose the dangers of hyper-sexualized dance, while encouraging children to pursue healthy dance alternatives. Mary talks about how to tell the difference between health dance and unhealthy dance. Mary also talks about the many dangers of allowing young girls and teens to participate in styles of dance that are too "adult" in their nature. The list of side effects or risks from allowing your daughter to participate in this style of dance--which is common now, everywhere--are astonishing. Listen to this interview so you can make an informed decision about the types of dance your daughter will participate in.

Learn more about DA:NCE-- Dance Awareness: No Child Exploited here: https://www.danceawareness.com/

Learn more about Compared to Who? by visiting: Https://www.improvebodyimage.com

The 40-Day Body Image Workbook: https://www.improvebodyimage.com/40-Day-Body-Image-Workbook-Christian

The 40 Day Journey (starts week of June 16): https://www.improvebodyimage.com/40-day-challenge

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:01]:

Mary Boden, welcome to the Compare To podcast.

Mary Boden [00:00:04]:

Oh, so nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:07]:

Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that you can help us today answer this question of will participating in dance harm my daughter's body image. And let me just give you a little bit of background, and then I wanna hear your background because I know you've been, working in this arena for quite a while. But we have a lot of women connected to the show, even clients of mine, those who have gone through coaching here, who would say that their body image issues, at least in par, may have started when they participated in dance. And some of that is, I don't know, maybe maybe more straightforward, like the ballet dancer, like body type. Right? And, you know, maybe having ballet dance instructors who really put a lot of pressure around looking looking like a ballet dancer. But then another part of that, and this is where I I know you're gonna help us go today. Another part of that is is just this this whole arena of what, I hate to say it, but kind of what dance has become.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:18]:

Yeah. Because it's not what it I mean, even cheer. Let's be honest. I live in Texas. Even cheer is not what it was thirty, forty, fifty years ago. And so I'm glad you're here with us today, Mary, to kinda help us sort this out. First, would you just, like, give us a little bit of your background? Like, why is dance I I don't know. Is it appropriate to say your passion

Mary Boden [00:01:42]:

or your calling? Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I have a BA and MA in dance. Therefore, you can tell that I I love dance, and I started taking dance when I was 11. And I had a wonderful experience. And if you read the research about what I would define as healthy dance, you will find the research outcomes couldn't be better from improved brain development, cognitive development, creativity, appropriate risk taking, confidence, community engagement, leadership, just all kinds of things, which are really appropriate. And so when I entered into the dance arena when I was 11, it was a wonderful experience. I just had, just the best time in dance.

Mary Boden [00:02:36]:

And before I was 11, I wanted to take dance, but we moved six times in my first twelve years. And I'm the youngest of four, and my parents just didn't get to it. Now they got to a lot of things like the house and the groceries and getting a doctor and signing me to a school. So they were wonderful. But, you know, yeah, for kids, you just have a little bit of challenge to do all the things your kids want. But my mother came to me when I was 11. We had just moved again and said, I found a dance studio for you. So, really, dance built me from the inside out.

Mary Boden [00:03:16]:

As I progressed in it. That's why I got the BA in modern dance. I'm highly trained in ballet, that method. So, it it really took a little girl who was very shy and really helped me to develop into the woman I became. And I hope you can see through this podcast that, I'm not too shy anymore. And, and so I love dance. I love healthy dance. I did end up, for over twenty five years leading a dance ministry at my church.

Mary Boden [00:03:56]:

So I believe God is the author of movement. Therefore, he's its first dancer. Genesis one two, God's spirit moved across the waters. And I believe that movement, if we look more deeply at it, is really our first language. Words are second.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:17]:

Wow. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so dance is a beautiful, God ordained thing.

Mary Boden [00:04:27]:

Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:28]:

And what's happened? Okay. World.

Mary Boden [00:04:33]:

Right? That's why I'm here to talk with you on this podcast. You know, God has given people choice from the beginning of time. If we're Christians and we look into the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve choice, informed choice. Choice is part of who we are as human beings. We choose when we go to sleep. We choose what snacks we have. We choose what we watch on TV, on and on and on. We have choices, and that comes from the the time we're the littlest to the time when we're a bit older.

Mary Boden [00:05:10]:

And I put myself in that category. So it should be no surprise to your listeners that dance has had some things come into the art form that are distorting it. And, and so you have to make choices. You have to be intentional. You have to be informed. When I was a little girl, my parents dropped me off at dance class and picked me up and we had chicken for dinner and then I did my homework. But but, I mean so there was there was nothing odd going on. But, now you have to check into the dance studio and see what their philosophy of hypersexualized content is.

Mary Boden [00:05:54]:

By that, I mean, what are the lyrics the children are dancing to? What are the costumes children are dancing to? And what are the movements that are being chosen for those kids. In some respects, in this culture, we're making children into many adults. We're objectifying them in adult sexual material, and that has all kinds of traumatic outcomes, for them. And I can cite some research if if you're interested. You know, the APA, many years ago, about ten years ago, actually, defined a hypersexualized child, as someone whose physical appearance was equated with being sexy, when they were made into an object, when sexuality was inappropriately imposed on them. And so it's it's a very broad definition, but it really fits the bill for a lot of what is going on in dance studios. And I really think that can be directed to, the advent of the Internet, because we we have to connect the dots as to why our kids being exposed to all this hypersexualized content. Also, the Internet media and pornography industry, I believe they are using dance to groom children, to make money, to use them at younger and younger and younger ages.

Mary Boden [00:07:30]:

You know, one research expert named Gail Dines calls it a pornified culture. Another research expert, Philip Adams, calls it corporate pedophilia, where where we're really exposing children to things that they they just can't be exposed to in terms of their brain development. And so, lots of things are going on psychologically. How do we approach a relationship when we're six years old and we've been exposed to an adult sexual culture? A child can't make those choices. So mom and dad, brothers and sisters, if they're older, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbors, church, members, they have to come and assist in those kinds of choices. So I hope that, the people listening to this podcast can really understand. We have to take hold of protecting our kids and helping them be in environments that really will help them grow in positive ways like what happened to me. And there's all kinds of ways I can share with you to do that.

Mary Boden [00:08:46]:

But by defaulting and saying, well, it's the way it is, that has led to a worsening of a lot of these problems. One of which is just even comparison to other kids. If we're talking about body image, dance can just have a child compare themselves to another child unless, you know, they get some input from caring adults and caring teachers to talk about this. And, so we just need to do some more work for children because this issue is under the radar. We've got so many things going on in the culture, and I'm certainly not saying, they're unimportant. But I think the baseline for any culture is protecting its children. That's why I founded dance awareness. No child exploited.

Mary Boden [00:09:40]:

Yeah.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:41]:

Yeah. Thanks for all of that. Let me let me go back and just kinda reemphasize, and maybe we can just kinda dig even deeper into one thing you said. And that was the subjectification part. Because as I see it and when most of the women I work with and I, you know, I work with adult women or a lot of women over 40. Like, one of the challenges that we have is in our body image issues even as adult women. Yeah. We are seeing ourselves as objects.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:08]:

Right? And so as I think about what happens when you put a little girl in dance, in a dance situation where it is all about the, you know, sexy movements and the sexy costumes and the, you know, really just trying to be older. Right? Is probably how most parents would maybe write it off. Like, oh, you know, this just is my this is my cute little seven year old acting like she's 17. Yeah. But it's not so cute because it's actually damaging her. Absolutely. Correct?

Mary Boden [00:10:44]:

Absolutely. I can, list a number of outcomes the APA has concluded about objectification and comparison for kids. They're unable to identify sexual abuse because this is sexual abuse. And that goes along with body image and body dysmorphia, this constant comparison. In dance, I think depending on the teacher, there has always kind of been that sense of comparison way back when, but it has exploded with the Internet media and porn industry. And parents allowing not only that comparison, for external, by image, but allowing a child to see and be exposed to movies, TV, magazines, cheerleading you just mentioned. It's it's just gone beyond the beyond. Actually, pornography and sexual exploitation and some of these issues are the wallpaper of our kids' lives.

Mary Boden [00:11:53]:

And yet, at the same time, god said it was good. Movement is good. Right? So what are you gonna do? Tell a child not to move? I mean, that's not a good solution. You know? If you're giving kids the message that they can't dance and they can't move, and then it's a bad, bad thing, what kind of outcome are you gonna get from that message? So, again, I have to go back to, step one, and that is we have to make informed choices. And, we have to be educated about that and, we have to talk with kids about it. And that's one of the reasons dance awareness came into existence because everything on our website is free. We have some four minute trailers that you could show to an older child, not younger ones. You can talk to the younger ones, depending on the age appropriate level of that child.

Mary Boden [00:12:56]:

But, we have a lot of people using these four minute trailers. They're all different, so you should take a peek at them at danceawareness.com and use them as a way to communicate and open the discussion with young people. And, of course, even with uneducated adults because this isn't a dance problem for dance teachers. I'm seeing uninformed adults and uninformed dance people across the boards, and that's because they've been exposed to the Internet, media, and porn, and they're busy. We're all busy. Mhmm. And nobody took notice. And so it didn't get better.

Mary Boden [00:13:37]:

It got worse.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:39]:

Yeah. Well, I I've read your list. I've been through your website. And the list of outcomes for this hypersexualized version of dance, It's it's pretty daunting.

Mary Boden [00:13:52]:

It's pretty daunting.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:53]:

I mean, it prostitution's on that list, isn't it?

Mary Boden [00:13:56]:

Absolutely. I mean, can you

Heather Creekmore [00:13:58]:

can you kinda I don't know. I don't want you to scare us necessarily, but can you give us the straight truth about the extremes? Like

Mary Boden [00:14:05]:

Well, actually, the extremes have been normalized. We're normalizing what is not normal, and it's so normal now that nobody's saying anything. So I need your listeners to say something.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:18]:

Yeah.

Mary Boden [00:14:19]:

Say it because we empower each other when we say something. Now just as important is how do we say something? Because if you start raging at people and screaming at people and and polarize the issue, nothing is going to happen. Nothing. So one of the tenants of dance awareness, we have four educational objectives. One of them is to engage in respectful conversations without shaming or demonizing dance studios or parents to make them aware of the issue and hopefully change their perspective. And if it doesn't, you've done your part. But, you know, the research also says people have to hear the same message a couple of times before they kind of buy into it. And, I was at a educator conference last year, actually, in Arkansas.

Mary Boden [00:15:18]:

And, I did my speaking, and I have PowerPoint. And there were two moderators. These are both professionals. One of them said to me at the end of the presentation in front of the crowd, boy, this just makes common sense. What parent would ever allow their child to do this? And I came in and I said, well, I said that that's true. I agree with you. But there are a lot of people who are unaware and uninformed and uneducated, and we wanna make sure not shame them, but educate them. I'm so glad I said that because the other moderator then spoke up and said, oh, I thought it was just cute.

Mary Boden [00:15:59]:

And she said, you have really opened my eyes to the traumatic outcomes from exposing children to these kinds of sexualized adult materials. And so there you have it. You have the response from one adult that says, oh, that's just common sense. You have another response from somebody who's a professional educator, I might add, in physical education.

Heather Creekmore [00:16:28]:

Wow.

Mary Boden [00:16:30]:

And she didn't have a clue. So now she's not a bad person. I'm not a bad person before I saw this issue. And so I I have to I have to, say what I say with kindness and gentleness and respect, but I don't back down.

Heather Creekmore [00:16:48]:

Yeah. Absolutely. So I have one daughter, and we had lived in Texas for maybe just maybe two or three years. And she was four, and she wanted to go to dance.

Mary Boden [00:17:03]:

And Of course. Because she wants to move. So

Heather Creekmore [00:17:07]:

we did one year of ballet and tap, and then we got to recital time.

Mary Boden [00:17:15]:

Yeah.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:16]:

And recital required full makeup for my four year old.

Mary Boden [00:17:23]:

Yeah.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:24]:

And I wasn't sure what to I mean, we're talking mascara. We're we're talking full makeup. Not like, I understand you need a little blush. You need maybe a little lip color or something because the lights are bright, but we're talking she needed a full face at age four. And so we we we took her out after that. Just I don't it just didn't feel right.

Mary Boden [00:17:44]:

But I commend you for that. Can I commend you for that? Actually, that's that's someone that was looking at what was going on, seeing the environment. And I say to parents, you know, don't think you're putting your child, your six year old in there. We'll talk about the makeup for six year old in just a minute, but she's looking at older girls. Mhmm. And she will model her life at some point after the older girls. And if she's been exposed to hypersexualized content in adult costumes, choreography, and music, she's gonna look up to those girls and she's gonna buy in and it's gonna be normalized for her. Yeah.

Mary Boden [00:18:28]:

So that's one thing. The second thing I wanna address if I can is that they they wanted to put adult makeup on her. Mhmm. Well, in a simplified version of healthy dance, children look like children. In age appropriate costumes, choreography, and music, usually accompanied by a great sense of joy. In harmful hypersexualized dance, children look like adults. In adult costumes, choreography, and music usually accompanied by adult makeup and adult hairstyle. So maybe at the six year old level, I don't know what the song was, the costume was, the choreography, but I can tell you she's being put into if that was requirement, she's put into an adult context, and you did the right thing by pulling her.

Heather Creekmore [00:19:23]:

Yeah.

Mary Boden [00:19:23]:

Now I can further that right thing by telling your listeners on danceawareness.com because kids love to move. You're not gonna win, and you shouldn't win because movement is God's idea. Mhmm. And it's a joy, and it builds community, and it's fun, and on and on and on in the right environment. Look at our healthy dance directory. We have a state by state listing of healthy dance directories that don't sexualize kids and are very attuned to this very issue, body image, comparison, all those things, that kind of come in the ball of wax that we are discussing. And your child can have an absolute delightful, wonderful time. And, so it's free and you can you can nominate a dance studio that you think is healthy.

Mary Boden [00:20:18]:

So if you live in Pennsylvania, but you know of a healthy dance studio in Florida, nominate.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:23]:

Yeah. Great.

Mary Boden [00:20:25]:

Because this Healthy Dance Directory will help both caring parents and caring dance educators because they don't know who they are. Right? Move to a town. You don't know where the Healthy Dance Studio is, and the dance studio doesn't know where the parents are

Heather Creekmore [00:20:44]:

Right.

Mary Boden [00:20:44]:

Who don't want hypersexualized content. And in fact, then we empower each other because what we hope at Dance Awareness is that the terms healthy and harmful dance will begin to be the words that parents and and caring adults and dance educators use as we approach, educating young children about the joy and the wonder of their bodies so they can give glory to God. Amen. But when that's not defined, when it's not discussed, in the confines of a dance experience, often people come to different conclusions about who they are, and that's external. And, you know, external presentation, I'm wearing a red jacket today. You've got glasses on, Heather. I mean, we notice externals. Right? But the real work that God does goes on from the inside out.

Mary Boden [00:21:45]:

Yes. And so we wanna make sure we set a child up to have the very best dance experience they can. And they're all over. There are all kinds of dance educators like me who love dance and love kids and wanna promote a wonderful, wonderful art form.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:08]:

Love it. Love it. Okay. You rattled through it just a minute ago, but just in case it wasn't super clear, can you give me, like, three or four things to look for? How do I know if I found a healthy dance studio?

Mary Boden [00:22:20]:

Well, the first thing you can do is download the free ebook. It's only 13 pages on danceawareness.com. It'll take you through the step by step process of how you do that. But in a nutshell, I I, I go to the June dance recital before I enroll my child. And you have to look at the older kids. It's getting so normalized at younger ages. I mean, I'm seeing it on the elementary and preschool level at this point. So it's not just the older kids, at many dance studios.

Mary Boden [00:22:58]:

Sometimes it is. Sometimes they kinda don't do that in the elementary levels, and then they you you see that gradual ascent in the older levels. But I would go and observe, that June dance recital or ask for a video. But my best suggestion would be to go into the dance studio, take a look around, take a look at the pictures, from the awards or whatever they were doing. And then I make, an appointment with that dance studio owner. And, you don't have to go in there with just all anger and you're mad and, you know, there's a really good, respectful way to talk with another adult Mhmm. Who obviously likes dance about the content of the songs. And most of the songs in hypersexualized dance studios aren't inappropriate.

Mary Boden [00:23:51]:

Just the lyrics are bad. Then you put on the costumes which are bad. Then you put on the movement or the choreography, which is terrible. So, it's a very appropriate thing to do. I mean, we check into our kids' diets. You know, what are they eating for a snack, or do they have candy every meal? Of course not. So, you know, just just being a a a an an adult who has the awareness and has identified the problem will probably fix it because you won't go to that dance studio. You, you know, you'll look up the names of the healthy dance directory nominees in our free directory, and you'll nominate some if if you know of anybody to to help other parents.

Mary Boden [00:24:42]:

So that's really the process. And so you have to empower yourself. Don't be afraid. First Timothy actually, second Timothy one seven says, we haven't been given a spirit of fear, but a power, love, and self control. And so you just just do what you have to do in any setting.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:02]:

Yeah. Are you doing anything around cheer? Have you moved because, I mean, I I live in Texas where we've got cheer team and dance team, and they're kind of the same. But it's, I mean, it's in the schools, and those dances are

Mary Boden [00:25:14]:

Yeah. Are interesting. Let me put it that way. Yeah. We have a lot of work to do Mhmm. Because nobody spoke up. Right? To my knowledge, dance awareness, no child

Heather Creekmore [00:25:27]:

Exploited is the

Mary Boden [00:25:28]:

only organization in the world, and I'm not using hyperbole. I wish I was. I wish there were a million different organizations speaking out about this topic. We are the only ones. So we need your listeners to to join the team and to be part of that team and not to be afraid. You're not old fashioned. The research is right with you. We are affiliated with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation in Washington, DC.

Mary Boden [00:25:58]:

Our research is outstanding. How this affects this, psychological framework for children, how this affects brain development, how this affects body image, focusing on external, so kids self sexualize. You know, these are not things that are options. Right? A child is not gonna be healthy when there are, you know, externalized with adult sexual content. It's just not gonna happen. So you have to speak out about that. You have to discuss it with your kids and, make use of our resources. You know, we have a dance newsletter.

Mary Boden [00:26:39]:

It comes out only three times a year. Please sign up for it. And we are the only one, again, in the world that I'm aware of, that has experts, dance educators, researchers, parents, grandparents, writing on this issue. So that will inform your listeners and help them, you know, to say something because, it doesn't matter if everybody's doing it. Everybody was smoking a couple of years ago. Right? I mean, that's true. In restaurants. Coffee poisoning.

Mary Boden [00:27:13]:

It's terrible. And so, I I I don't care if it's been normalized, which it has. We need to speak up and and make changes, and, we'd love your listeners to join the dance coalition. What does that mean? And first of all, I should say it's nonpartisan. Although I am faith based, it is not. So what we want is any adult who's listening and who wants to stand against the hypersexualization of children and adult costumes, choreography, and music can sign up, and that's the end of it. Or if you wanna sign up for a committee and work on some of these issues, we'd like to invite you to. But, you know, we'd love to have you, share that with your friends.

Mary Boden [00:28:02]:

And, again, it's nonpartisan. Any adult who wants to protect kids can be part of the dance coalition.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:09]:

Great. Great. Well, tell us that website, Mary, as we close-up today where tell us your website.

Mary Boden [00:28:15]:

It's www.danceawareness.com.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:20]:

Great. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Well, Mary Baldwin, thanks so much for being on the podcast today. Appreciate you being here and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us.

Mary Boden [00:28:30]:

Well, it's a joy to be here, and it's a joy to help people. Help people really, take hold of this issue and let their kids enjoy movement. And, again, I wanna stress that the answer to harmful dance is healthy dance, and there's plenty of dance educators out there who agree with my perspective. So this is a a trend and a pattern in the culture, not in dance.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:00]:

Yeah. I I love that distinction. When mine were very little, that was a thing we would do. We would turn on, you know, normally, some contemporary song. I'm thinking of, like, Rent Collective has a song called Joy, which just kinda makes you wanna jump.

Mary Boden [00:29:14]:

That's right.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:14]:

And and so that was just one thing we did. When my kids were little, we'd make Alexa play it loud, and and we'd all jump around and dance. So that

Mary Boden [00:29:22]:

was That's right.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:23]:

A very fun part of of being a mom of little kids.

Mary Boden [00:29:27]:

And, just because I know this is a faith based podcast, you know, you're giving glory to God. So if you feel like, oh, I'm not good enough. I don't know. Ask yourself the question. Does this movement, does this song, does this choreography, does this teacher as she interacts with children give glory to God? There's your bottom line.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:49]:

There you go.

Mary Boden [00:29:50]:

And so you you you know, let's simplify this so it's not so hard. Yeah. And, do it as soon as you can is to make those evaluations and get them in programs, that really are age appropriate, and you see the beauty and the joy of kids responding to the beauty of the body, which they were given by God. Yeah.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:13]:

I love it. Thanks so much, Mary. Appreciate you being on the show today.

Mary Boden [00:30:17]:

Thank you.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:18]:

And thank you for watching or listening today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye bye.