'Nothing changes until it does' - Karen Sheriff, Project RED-D

About this episode

Karen Sheriff discusses Relative Energy Deficiency in dancers and its implications for high-performance athletes.

"Nothing changes until it does. You can create change. You just have to find the hook - and keep creating ripples until they become waves." This week on the How to Thrive podcast, Claire and Helen are joined by Karen Sheriff, clinical physiotherapist and Executive Director at Project RED-D - a global initiative tackling one of the most under-recognised syndromes in high performance: Relative Energy Deficiency (RED) in dancers. Karen's background spans elite rugby, cricket and the performing arts, including eight years at the Royal Ballet School where she grew the healthcare team and built world-class multidisciplinary pathways around athlete health. It was there that she became a leading voice on RED-S - Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport - and its particular manifestation in dance, ultimately being asked by her seed funders to "change the world" by taking the work global through Project RED-D. In this episode, Karen explains what RED-S actually is - what happens to the body when it is chronically under-fuelled, why elite athletes and dancers are especially at risk, and the striking parallels with other high-pressure professions, where sleep deprivation and over-working have…

People in this episode

Hosts: Claire Sanders, Helen Silver-MacMahon

Guest: Karen Sheriff

Topics covered

• Relative Energy Deficiency
• athlete health
• dance
• high performance
• change
• healthcare

Keywords

• Relative Energy Deficiency
• athletes
• dancers
• healthcare
• performance
• change
• Project RED-D

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Project RED-D

Books & works: Belonging

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