I struggled with disordered eating my sophomore year of high school and periodically continue to struggle with body image. After recovering from the physical components of my disordered eating, I started to become aware of how our society perpetuates unrealistic beauty standards for girls in subtle yet intrusive and damaging ways. I became increasingly frustrated with how body dissatisfaction among girls has become normalized and deeply saddened by how many of my friends were going through or had gone through similar experiences.

 

This anger and sadness led me to create "Stickers for NEDA" the summer after my junior year of high school. I wanted to redeem my own battle with eating and body image along with my friends' and make something good out of our experiences. I honestly wasn't expecting much of a result and mainly wanted to share my story to create some sort of change, no matter how small, but by the end of the summer so many people, including friends from school, friends of friends, teachers, and parents, had donated or reached out to me sharing their own stories. The whole process was both terrifying and incredibly rewarding.

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My freshman year of college was full of new experiences, new friends, and new struggles with comparison and body image. Multiple conversations about body image and struggles with food came up with these new friends, and I deeply resonated with each person's hurt and anger. This moved me to start another round of fundraising. In total, this project has raised around $700, all donated to NEDA.

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Recently, I started working as a peer facilitator for the Mind. Body. Voice project at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute. The program empowers girls to listen to and connect to their bodies, and to resist and combat appearance biases, taking action within their own communities. I've loved being more educated about appearance biases myself and being trained to facilitate conversations among a whole new generation of girls who are just as passionate about body image as I am.  

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I'm not currently fundraising, however, please still reach out if you'd like or donate to NEDA if possible!

Thank you for being interested and invested in me and this project!!

x Sam