When does dance stop being good for us? What elite dance teaches us about health-promoting environments. Dance is widely recognised as a powerful contributor to health and wellbeing. Yet the picture becomes more complicated when we turn our attention to pre-professional and professional dancers. This post explores five ways high-performance environments can undermine health and outlines the SHAPE framework for creating mentally healthier dance cultures.

Despite increasing recognition of mental health as a critical component of athlete wellbeing, help-seeking remains a complex and underutilised behaviour within sport contexts. A recently published scoping review in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine synthesises findings from 104 peer-reviewed studies to examine the multifaceted factors influencing athletes’ decisions to seek psychological support. The review highlights a persistent tension between the cultural norms of high-p