How Diet Culture Shapes Cheerleader Culture

Sarah Hepola: “This 2015 confessional piece gives a good overview of the pressures facing pro cheerleaders to look perfect. The writer was pulled from a game after weighing in at 127 pounds. ‘I alternated between starving myself and purging, operating solely on caffeine, herbal energy supplements, and a fear of being yelled at in front of the entire team. I got colonics, had body wraps, took diet pills, fasted, and got enemas.’”

SH: “It was an age of supermodels, crash diets, and heroin chic. New Yorker writer Susan Orlean looks back on the book she wrote (under a different name) that captured that mania, sometimes in awkward ways.”

SH: “As the Nineties cheerleaders dieted and sweat off the pounds, the Nineties Cowboys were steeped in excess. When a cop went to arrest Irvin, in a Dallas hotel room where he was holed up with a lot of coke and a lot of women, he famously asked: ‘Can I tell you who I am?’ A media carnival ensued when an alleged plot to kill Irvin hit the press.”

SH: “A 2014 lawsuit filed by five members of the Buffalo Jills cheerleading squad alleged that, among other indignities, they were subjected to ‘jiggle tests’ to manage their weight gain. In wake of the lawsuits, the team eventually folded its squad. McManus tangles with the legal and moral implications of asking women to submit to such treatment. Of a job she held at 16, she said, ‘I knew in my heart I’d have done that job for free. But no one expected me to.’”

SH: “No other writer has chronicled the recent travails of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders like Paige Skinner, a Dallas journalist who also counts herself a fan. (She appears in the next episode of our podcast.) This piece looks at the fraught conversation around Black women’s hair and includes an interview with former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Jacie Scott.”

SH: “One of the interviews that couldn’t make it into our podcast was with Meagan Pravden, a contestant on season 9 of Making the Team. Director Kelli Finglass coined the term ‘thutt’ to describe her thighs and butt running together, a moment that is perhaps made for reality TV, but also personal nightmares. Paige Skinner talks to Meagan, and looks at the troubled history of body shaming on the show.”

SH: “Former Seattle Seahawks cheerleader Mhkeeba Pate’s podcast is a gold mine for anyone wanting to learn about the real experience of pro cheer. (She’s interviewed in this episode.) A former lawyer, Pate has an analytical mind but a dancer’s empathy as she speaks with women about their various experiences. This terrific episode covers the tricky topic of Black hair in cheer, with panelists like the owner of Rose Salon, who started a partnership with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.”

SH: “Vivian Ralena Williams, who appears on our podcast, goes deeper into her own story in this intimate conversation with Pate, who shares her own observations about body shaming. Particularly memorable are the dark stories that come in the wake of Vivian’s appearance on Making the Team, as she turned against herself and the people around her.”

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