Ballet fatties told to hold the chips

Senay Boztas, Scottish Arts Correpondent for The Times

THEY are preparing to play The Snowman, but would be better cast as the sugar lump fairy. Scottish Ballet will ask its male stars to go on a diet and fitness course after they return from their summer break bulging in all the wrong places.

Senior figures at Scottish Ballet said some of their male dancers had eaten too many battered haggis suppers over the summer break and needed to lose some weight.

When the dancers return from their five-week holiday this week, they will be invited by ballet heads to special healthy eating seminars organised by UK dance performance specialists to try to get the balance back. Ballet dancers are often admired for their unobtainably svelte and muscular figures, but in fact they are notorious for having bad diets and unhealthy lifestyles, including chain-smoking to control their weight.

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