Name: Ciela Lalvani

Social Justice Group: Body Image and Social Media

Date of Fieldwork: February 4, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) Lauren Smolar: Senior Director of Programs

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

Today my group and I had an interview with Lauren Smolar. Lauren Smolar is the Senior Director of Programs at the National Eating Disorders Association. She is important to our topic because she knows a lot about eating disorders, and in our case how they are effected by social media. I was actually suprised that giving what she does she said she believes social media is a great way to stay connected, learn more, and a good thing to have. However she thinks social media has a downside that needs to be fixed.

NEDA preparing for National Eating Disorders Awareness week at the end of this month and is sharing people’s stories on their experience with eating disorders. They hope to do more in person events once it’s safe, but is happy with the way people are still coming to them for help during this time. I really enjoyed this interview because it gave us the perspective of a professional and we got to learn about what this organization is working to do next.