Battle of the sexes time! Ballroom dancing is beneficial to men and women alike, but have you ever wondered who benefits more? Let’s take a look at five of the biggest benefits dancing offers, and then see who has the most to gain!
Strength and Fitness. Since women are typically smaller than men, and they usually have a lower body mass to muscle ratio than men, you might think that women have more to gain than men in this arena. But the verdict is actually more mixed than that, because while women have more to gain in strength, men are the ones who typically can improve more from a fitness standpoint. For example, men are at a higher risk of heart disease resulting from their storage of body fat and a sedentary lifestyle. So here, men and women stand to gain a lot!
Flexibility. Women tend to be more naturally flexible than men because their bones are shorter, and the corners of those bones are less-pronounced. Bones like the pelvis are also shallower in women than men, allowing for greater range of motion and more elasticity. So men could have more to gain in flexibility, because stretching after a class could help them improve faster than the women, who might already be pretty flexible.
Reducing Stress. According to the American Psychological Association, women are more likely than men to report high levels of stress, and nearly half of all women report that their stress has only increased over time. Since men report being more relaxed, it looks like the de-stressing effect of dance would be a bigger benefit to women!
Making Friends. Research on this topic is fuzzy, but some recent studies have agreed that men tend to have fewer, and shallower, friendships than women. Both sexes need solid, intimate friendships to maintain mental and physical vitality, especially as they enter old age. Social relationships are linked to a reduction in the symptoms of depression and an improved outlook on life and the future. So it looks like men might have more to gain in friendship by meeting new people and forming new social bonds at a dance class.
Creativity. Dancing offers an amazing creative outlet and improves cognitive function, helping to stave off decline due to aging. Studies have even shown that social dance can prevent dementia. Women stand to gain much more from this, because research consistently shows that women tend to suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s at higher rates than men. This is partly because women tend to live longer than men, but also because certain gene variants are more likely to lead to Alzheimer’s in women than the same genes in men. Actions taken to sustain cognitive function in women are more likely to have an impact than the same actions for men.
Our results seem pretty mixed! It seems men and women both stand to gain a lot by taking up a dance class! If you’re curious about how dancing could benefit you, visit your local Fred Astaire Dance Studio today!
