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A few weeks ago Dancing with the Stars professional Cheryl Burke randomly told People magazine about how anorexia wasn’t beautiful, and then went on to talk about how she’s totally okay with her body. It seemed a little unnecessary but was a good point nonetheless. Now it looks like Cheryl must have been taking some serious heat for her weight on the set, because not one but two of her male costars have criticized the female dancers’ bodies.
The professional dancers on DWTS are not pleased that Cheryl Burke and Lacey Schwimmer packed on a few pounds this season.
“If you want to gain weight, it’s your prerogative,” dancer Louis van Amstel says in the newest issue of TV Guide. “We all put on weight because there was no summer tour,” he adds. “But you have to deal with the consequences.”
Pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy is also complaining.
“When I first saw these women this season, I said, ‘Guys, you know the camera adds 10 pounds,’” he says. “‘You have to do something about this.” Burke and Schwimmer have gotten slimmer since the season’s premiere, but van Amstel says the damage is done.
“[People] look at this show to be inspired and think, ‘If I just work hard enough, I can look like that,’” he says. “If they watch someone who’s dancing her butt off and she’s still heavy, they can be discouraged.
“You have to take responsibility,” he adds.
[From Us Weekly]
This is so unnecessary and mean spirited. There really is no winning. If a person slims down or focuses too much on what they eat they’re obsessed. If they put on any weight they’re unhealthy. Either way, average bodies are going to be called fat if they dare to be average. Yes Cheryl and Lacey are dancers, which means that they’re already highly aware of how their bodies look. They probably spend more than half their days in front of full-length mirrors. Whatever the reason for their weight gain, I’m sure they’re painfully aware of it.
They don’t need some insensitive jerks making comments about it. Especially after they’ve both worked hard to lose weight. This show is supposed to be about fun, which is why people like it. Criticizing women’s bodies for being less-than-perfect (dancers or otherwise) isn’t necessary.
Here’s Lacey Schwimmer with Lance Bass at the EA Sports Freestyle presents Facebreaker launch party on September 3rd. Photographer: Rachel Worth. Cheryl Burke is shown with Maksim Chmerkovskiy on September 4th. Header of Lacey at Planet Funk’s Fashion Week Kick-off on October 10th and Cheryl at the “Love Sees No Color” even on September 19th. Images thanks to WENN.
Written by JayBird
Posted in Cheryl Burke, Dancing, Dancing with the Stars, Weight
36 Responses to “Are Cheryl Burke & Lacey Schwimmer too fat for DWTS?”
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i can see what they mean though. when i danced, i got so skinny and i sure as hell wasnt dancing as much as they are. i dont understand what they must eat to have any fat on them at all. lacey was heaving on so you think you can dance too. if her brother wasnt so thin, i would blame genetics.
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They both look gorgeous!
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Yeah they’re real heffers!
I wish I was “fat” like them!This is why there are so many eating disorders in this country.
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Who cares about their weight? As long as they dance well, it doesn’t matter.
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Here’s the thing with Cheryl, because she has been photographed and video taped coming out of many, many nightclubs sloppy drunk we can’t be sure if she has gained weight because she is a lush. If that is the case, then yes, she is decidedly heavier than in previous seasons and it appears to the casual observer that she is not in shape and appears to like drinking over maintaining the dancing phsyique she had early on.
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I would love to look like them…Cheryl is beautiful. I think she has an awesome body.
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Hah!
Those women are beautiful! They make me feel sexy and proud to have a shapely figure! I always ask myself, ” Do I look chunky? ” and I see their pictures and it really helps that people who exercise as much as they do and are in the media look that great! 
That was harsh of them to say mean things about them! Makes me think of my grandma griping at me about not jogging two miles a day when I was 14!
Damn did I look good for 14! (without the 2 miles a day!)
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I have never seen Lacey before so I don’t know if she’s ‘gained weight’ or has always been this size. Cheryl has put on a few pounds but not in a “holy cow, what’s she been eating” kind of way. For Maksim and Louis to publicly comment is unnecessary and not very supportive. Let us be the bitches. Compared with the likes of Edyta and Karina who are almost impossibly small, yes Cheryl and Lacey look a little heavy. While I support both dancers I confess the first few weeks I watched Lacey I thought she looked like the celebrity not the dancer, mainly because her thighs look so blimin’ normal.
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And shit like that is why so many women have body image issues
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@ tiffany: i agree! cheryl and lacey are beautiful and healthy-looking. beauty isn’t a friggin’ size zero. or would people rather have everyone looking like victoria “take me to your leader” beckham?
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I think Lacey is one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen. I’ve never heard of her before DWTS this season, but each time she’s on, I am just captivated by her very expressive face. She’s a little heavier than the other dancers, but she is certainly equal or superior in the looks department. I like Cheryl too, she seems to have gotten a little arrogant lately, but to call her fat is just insulting.
And if Louis and Max want to throw stones, I could throw a few at them. Max is barely good looking (although he thinks he is) and Louis isn’t anywhere near good looking. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t talk about someone else’s appearance. How does the old saying go…? “They can always lose weight, but Louis and Max will still be ugly”
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No wonder Cloris Leachman was complaining the stage smells of bacon.
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Come on. Everybody except athletes knows that it’s not the toned and skinny ones that motivate people, it’s the obese. A whole “There, but for the grace of God, go I” deal.
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I agree with Bodhi. What is going on? I read the most mean-spirited posts the other day - on other sites- about young Raven Symone as well. That woman who writes on the Evil Beet for example wrote that she was a terrible role model and should “put down her cheeseburger” and “lose some f+ing weight”. It makes me sad.
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NO! They are beautiful girls and don;t need to lose any weight. I live in LA and I will tell you, if you want to find a bag of bones, this is the town. Eat a sandwich girls!
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I think the thing about this that bothers me is that Cheryl claimed to have only gained 5 pounds. Now I’m not saying she’s fat, but it looks to me as if she’s gained more than 5 pounds.
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They both look great to me. So what if “danced their butts off” but still don’t look like a size 0! They are healthy and actually eat. When will the entertainment business learn this! Being boney does not mean you are fit!
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How are women suppost to feel good about themselves when these girls are considered fat? I must be a cow, I guess. But, a size 10 cow!
And honsetly, I know a lot of big, obease women who would kill to be as “fat” as these two!!! Maybe we should lock these guys in a closet for a while and let ‘Crazy” Cloris mess them up. Or make out with them. Would that shut them up??? -
They are both beautiful. It is so crass of those two male dancers to say something like that. Were they not raised to be gentlemen?? Also, neither male dancer has any bragging rights in the looks dept. They are both average to below - average - looking. Dancing with either male would be less than enjoyable considering the enormous but undeserved egos they both have.
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Who cares ?? Won’t they loose the weight, dancing through the many practices, lessons, and rehearsals of the show. Isn’t this why all those celebrities look good and proclaim how much weight they have lost, after the season is over?
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I bet they are slimmer in person. Pics and tv always add 10 pounds to your body.
I don’t really love or dislike them but I don’t think they are fat either. -
Cheryl and Lacey are size 4! If that is fat, I don’t know how I even manage to walk around. Even if they got to a size 6, they would still be normal healthy dancers. They both have very toned arms and legs. Remember that a dancer or athelete may have more bulk than just a thin person.
They both look great to me.
But, I do agree that Cheryl Burke has been partying a lot. Alcohol has a lot of calories and it adds up! It can also give you a pooch. So, I hope she stops soon.But, by no means are either of these ladies fat or too big! Seriously!
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(1) They aren’t fat–not even a little.
(2) Cheryl may have gained only 5 lbs because she wasn’t working out and lost muscle, which is heavier than fat.
(3) They are to be “judged” on their dancing/coaching, and Cheryl has an excellent record of vistories in DWTS.
(4) I truly fear Cheryl may be drinking to block out the intense criticism aimed ate her face, hair and figure, and the unceasing allegations of an affair with the Lachey kid.We “normal” people need to hold these ladies up at this time and support them. This DWTS kerfuffle is another example of women being either objectified or diminished. Does any other instructor have as good a record as Cheryl? When she wins, they call her ugly or muppet, now she’s fat. This is an insidious example of a mindset that bleeds across professions, so the “they’re dancers” excuse is baloney.
Regardless of your politics you have to have noticed that the onslaught of simulated pornograhic and other misogynistic images of Gov. Palin is all out of whack with the satire aimed at the male candidates.
We simply cannot tolerate this. We’re destroying our women and girls by measuring them on a sliding scale whose endpoints are “ugly” and “bitch”.
Like the old Nike commercial read “If you are going to judge a woman judge her by the things she can control, like who she is and who she is trying to become. Not by 36-24-36 and whether she is flat or strait or round.”
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If I were Lacey and Cheryl, I’d kick their asses. I hope that Cheryl and Lacey are secure enough in themselves to just ignore it. The real problem is that Cheryl and Lacey are what size 6, tops? That’s something most women spend their whole lives trying to attain, and here are these jerks saying that it’s “fat.” That’s great. It’s a great message to send to perfectly healthy women.
And @ Jess: Genetically speaking, two people can be born of the same parents and have completely different body types. Genes are funny things.
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I simply think the dancing is one of those arenas where the expectation is that you should be thin. It’s an expectation that hardly gets challenged so it makes sense that someone would tell them to lose weight.
If they could prove they don’t need to by going on to win it then it might shift expectations and accepted standards. Thing is I think it’s not just the people on the show who hold those expectations but a lot of the public too.
You never know though, something suprising could happen.
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They are nowhere near fat. As long as they can dance, and dance well, they are doing their job. Leave them alone. They both look great.
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Like many other posters, I agree that neither of them are fat. But if I didn’t know that they were dancers, I would never peg them for that. I guess I expect dancers to look toned and shapely, so honestly, they would not be a ringing endorsement for me to pick up ballroom dancing.
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I agree with you, Embee - 100%
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as a dancer myself - sure, any person of any size can dance. but if you’re smaller it’s easier, particularly in a style like ballroom that relies on line and uses a lot of lifts. and you look better in the ridiculous outfits they put you in. dance costumes are maybe the least flattering things someone can wear this side of a burlap sack.
and if either of them is a size 4, slap my butt and call me shirley. they know they’ve gained weight and they don’t feel okay about it and you can tell because they’re lying.
but dance is unusually harsh. any other job and i’d say they look like rockstars. -
These girls are not fat at all!! they just aren’t extremly thin like some of the other dancers. They are fantastic dancers, very, very talented and it makes me sick that folks are only focusing in on thier imagined fat and not their incredible talent. I am not overweight and I never have been. I am a size 4 and everyone I know thinks I a thin. I guess I would be fat in the viewers eyes and that is just silly. Max is a jerk we all know that!!
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Awww, c’mon! Both are young, healthy, beautiful women, who can dance beautifully. We all should be so lucky.
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its unfortunate what the media defines are “fat”. if you saw these same people on the street, you would indeed see that they are slim and heck, weigh less than the majority of us regular folks. realistically, the ones that are “slim” in the media, are probably sooo skinny in real life, we would be worried for them.
leave those two alone and anyone else that is supposedly “fat”. there is and never was anything wrong with them. they all look amazing.
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… WOOW! I’m a dancer to, although I’m not as old as them, so they’re probablly totally aware that they gained weight. But that doesn’t really matter, becuase they’re both beautiful… I watched Lacey on SYTYCD and she’s just like that. It looks like she has a ton of muscle though, she always has.
If I was uncomfterable with my body, this would make it so much worse. They’re TOOOOTALLY not fat, at all, people are retarded. -
The pressure that television puts on young women to become skin and bones is problematic. Most people don’t look like that. And I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but I don’t like looking at a woman’s ribs.
Lacey Schwimmer looked HOT last night (when Steve-O hurt his back, unfortunately), with that smooth midriff twisting and that kadunkadunk bouncing around. I was actually on the phone doing remote assistance, when my cousin walked into the living room and said, “Damn, that girl can shake it!”
And here’s some food for thought on the subject of Cheryl Burke: I hope I don’t jinx her, but she is the current champion of DWTS, and therefore a role model by right. This is a prime example of an average-bodied woman making the mark, and doing it in the faces of her skinny contemporaries. We need more TV idols like her; this would help to undo the spell of shame that is tormenting women today.
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For the person who said that Lacey must have gained weight by her own fault because her genes “obviously” dictate she should be thin - have you seen her father? He was a ballroom champ but has since gained a lot of weight, so there goes your genetics theory.
Not to mention that because she and Cheryl are dancers - not in spite of it, as people are implying - they are bound to be more muscular than the average person. They throw themselves around in the air all day long and that takes strength. Strength comes from muscles; people who are muscular tend to be ‘thicker’ because they are not skin and bone alone.
In all honesty, I thought Lacey was the most attractive female on DWTS because she has some substance. Seeing people’s ribs protrude as they breath scares me.
What guy wants to cuddle and sleep with a big sack o’ bones anyway? None that I know.
P.S. I agree with you, Eric S. I thought the way she was shakin’ it was pretty hot - and I’m a girl!
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If those two girls are fat. Than Lord let me wake tomorrow and be just as fat as either of them!! I think they have nice figures and people need to stop making others feel bad about their bodies.
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