Dancing with the Stars star Cheryl Burke became a household name on the ABC show, but her professional success was not without serious implications.
Cheryl was the guest star on a recent podcast, where she explained the problems she had with body dysmorphia.
Cheryl discussed the standards of perfection associated with dancing and explained that while she had body dysmorphia, the disorder is the norm in the industry.
Body dysmorphia is a mental disorder that causes a person to have anxiety about a perceived imperfection, which either does not exist or is too small for others to notice. People may see themselves as ugly or overweight and it can cause social withdrawal due to anxieties about flaws.
Cleveland Clinic estimates that body dysmorphic disorder affects about 1 in 50 people.
The professional dancer opened up when she appeared as a guest for the HypochondriActor podcast hosted by Sean Hayes and Dr. Priyanka Wali.
Cheryl Burke talks body dysmorphia and dancing
The episode focused on Cheryl Burke and Alzheimer’s, which her mother has, and also touched on body dysmorphia.
Cheryl explained, “I have body dysmorphia because I’m a dancer. I mean, tell me one dancer that doesn’t. When I look at myself in the mirror, and someone says, ‘Oh, you look amazing’ I see someone who is overweight, and in my eyes and in my way of judging myself, not amazing. So it’s like no matter what I look like.”
She explained that her body dysmorphia caused problems with dress fittings and wardrobe stylists at DWTS.
Cheryl revealed, “I was pretty skinny, and yet I was still giving wardrobe hassle in our fittings. Like meaning not hassling them, more like, ‘Ugh, I feel like s***’ or ‘Oh my God, look at my fat roll.’ It’s so ridiculous.”
Cheryl Burke was fat-shamed extensively by DWTS fans
Cheryl Burke was fat-shamed by DWTS viewers, and as a public figure, she noticed. She said, “The nation decided to call me fat about season seven or eight when I actually got off my birth control, and I retained 15 pounds of water weight.”
When people stop taking birth control, their hormones re-adjust, and there may be changes in weight and skin because of hormonal fluctuations.
Cheryl said, “Normally, people lose weight when they get off birth control. So I decided to get off of it right at the beginning of the season and I gained weight like in less than a week, literally 15 pounds of water weight. And then it was like a big deal, like ‘Cheryl’s too fat for TV,’ and then I had a couple of my co-workers blasting my a** too.”
But Cheryl is on the mend, addressing the source of the problem and hopefully paying less attention to critics’ toxic opinions.
Dancing with the Stars is on hiatus. The dancing reality competition series will return in late 2022 to its new home on Disney+ streaming.