What Dance Taught Me About Body Bias- and Why It Matters in Healthcare

A recent patient advocacy client asked me a question that gave me pause. She told me she deeply connected with much of what I share on my website, but wondered why I hadn’t said anything about body positivity. As someone who has experienced bias in medical settings because of her body size, she wanted to know that I understood how things like BMI and weight are often used as excuses to dismiss, ignore, or even mistreat patients.

Her question made me realize something important, body image, body dysmorphia, and body positivity have shaped so much of my life, through my work in healthcare, my personal experiences, and my years as a dancer, that I assumed my perspective was clear. But for people who don’t know that part of my story, I have never actually said it out loud...so here it is.

Before I go further, I want to name what I mean when I talk about body dysmorphia. Body dysmorphia, or body dysmorphic disorder, is a mental health condition where someone becomes preoccupied with perceived flaws in their appearance, often seeing themselves in a way that is distorted or harsher than reality. It can lead to obsessive thoughts, intense self-criticism, and difficulty feeling at home in one’s own body, even when others do not see those same “flaws.”

I spent 30 years in the entertainment industry, and body image shaped me in two very different ways.

First, as an average looking, thin white dancer working in an exoticized dance world, specifically bellydance, I was constantly compared to others to determine whether I was “hireable.” That experience deeply affected how I saw myself. I developed body dysmorphia in an environment where appearance was always being evaluated. I knew that despite those critiques my body and positionality sometimes gave me advantages. I witnessed how much more exclusion and criticism dancers in larger bodies, dancers of color, and queer dancers faced.

Knowing I had certain privileges did not protect me from internalizing those standards. The hypercritical voice stuck. Despite years of growth, therapy, and advocacy for others, that programming still lingers. Undoing what the entertainment industry wired into my brain has been incredibly difficult.

Second, when I founded my dance company, I made a conscious choice to challenge those biases. I wanted to create a safer space for people who loved this dance form but had limited access because they did not fit the narrow expectations of the industry. That meant they gained access to community, to music, to teaching, to performance, and to paid opportunities that might not have been available otherwise.

From the beginning, the company was intentionally inclusive. It was built alongside women of different races, identities, and lived experiences, including a Black woman, a Latinx woman, a queer woman, and a heavily tattooed woman who had been excluded from traditional performance spaces. Since its founding in 1999, the company grew to include people across a wide range of ages, body types, genders, orientations, abilities, and dance backgrounds. When I had a daughter who seemed to love dancing as much as I did, I worked incredibly hard to make sure that I didn't pass biases onto her. I prioritized putting her in body positive spaces that would focus on complimenting her skills rather than her body. It was through the hard work of the entire company and the dancers being their whole, unapologetic selves that Awalim managed to be one of those spaces.

I carried that same intention into my event production work, centering performers who were often othered and creating space for them to share their art. And here is what mattered most: inclusion did not hurt us. While I was focused on creating access for dancers what I didn't realize was that I was also giving the audience access to amazing artists that they would not have seen otherwise. Every show sold out from the very beginning.

What it did not do was change the broader industry as much as I had hoped. The same narrow standards for who “looked right” for the role persisted in most hiring spaces.

When the pandemic lockdown began, the company went on hiatus. I shifted my focus more fully into patient advocacy and doula work, though I have continued teaching dance virtually. Dance became something different for me. It became personal again. It became a way to reconnect with music and my body without judgment about skill, choreography, or appearance. I fell back in love with dance as something that belonged to me.

Then something amazing happened- Majda Anwar, one of our former dancers, reached out. Majda is unapologetically curvaceous and one of the most powerful performers I have ever seen. Choreographing, performing, touring, and teaching alongside her was one of the greatest privileges of my career...anyone that has seen her perform completely understands. She told me she and other Awalim members missed what the company created and wanted to revive it.

I gave her my full blessing. I knew I didn’t want to return to performing at this time, but I felt proud and deeply moved that someone who experienced that space wanted to carry it forward for others.

That is the point. The work was never meant to belong to me alone. It was meant to ripple outward to fight the biases and create spaces.

And now, that ripple continues.