Name: Mia Taylor

Social Justice Group: Beauty Standards and the Media

Date of Fieldwork: January 23, 2024

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Balance Eating Disorder Rehab Center

Type of Fieldwork: [69]

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

For our first piece of field work we met with Emily Pirro, an intake coordinator for Balance Eating Disorder Rehab Center. Her Job is to take incoming calls from people seeking help from the center and helps set them up with a program as well give them additional recommendations. The center provides body image support groups, mood groups and food safety groups. Many people that attend balance are younger however Emily mentioned there are many older women who come in who just recently realize they had been struggling with an eating disorder their whole life. The goal of balance is to ensure everybody has a health relationship with food and their body.

In the interview we discussed the effect that the media can have on women. We discussed how, with the age of social media, how many photos utilize lighting, angles, and photo-shopping to create the image of the “ideal body”. We talked about how the environment the you grow up in plays a large part in the way that you view your body and food.