Mariafrancesca Garritano was fired last month after telling a British newspaper that her fellow dancers in the La Scala Ballet were suffering from an “anorexia emergency,” and that one in five dancers in the company was suffering from the eating disorder. The former prima ballerina also told The Observer that borderline abusive tactics were used by the company to pressure dancers to remain thin, and that after being called “mozzarella” and “Chinese dumpling” in front of an entire class of students, her weight dropped to under 100 pounds. In the ensuing firestorm of defensive debunking, her fellow dancers banded together to insist that there was no eating disorder problem said they felt “flabbergasted and embittered” by Garritano’s claims.