Embodied

Despite a decade of restrictive behavior and a career path in mental health counseling, Alishia McCullough had never associated herself with the phrase eating disorder. She’s not alone – while eating disorders affect all races and ethnicities at similar rates, people of color are less than half as likely to receive a diagnosis than their white counterparts. She talks to Anita about how an aha moment in grad school led h...

What does becoming a mother do to your brain, body and sense of self? Anita — currently in her third trimester —  puts that question to science writer Lucy Jones. Lucy spent years studying matrescence, a word for the shift that happens during pregnancy, childbirth and becoming a parent. They talk about Lucy's own path through motherhood and why we need new ways to support mothers through this transformation that ne...

Imagine sitting down in a theater only to be distracted from the performance by armrests digging into your sides. Or arriving at the doctor’s office to find the patient gown won’t fit. For tens of  millions of Americans in larger bodies, experiences like this are part of everyday life. Anita talks to two people who argue this is a design problem, not a personal one. Artist Suzy Hooker is building a free, searchable...

When Philip Hoover and his wife Lauren Hill-Hoover tested positive for COVID-19 in 2022, they thought they knew what to expect. But then Philip’s symptoms persisted, morphed and intensified. They talk to Anita about how an illness that’s affected tens of millions of Americans upended their life and forced them to confront big, existential questions, like: What does caring for each other in sickness and in health *really...

Somewhere between 20-50% of children are picky eaters at some point in early childhood, and many of us assume that’s just how kids naturally are. But after historian Helen Zoe Veit spent more than a decade reading memoirs, cookbooks and parenting manuals from the past 200 years, she came to a radically different conclusion: picky eating is not inevitable. It is a modern cultural phenomenon. She tells Anita how we got here &md...

When Yowei Shaw got laid off two years ago, there was no amount of bad TV, fried food or even therapy that could get her out of a deep emotional rut. So, she turned to the one thing that had worked in the past: reporting on her feelings. That journey led her to starting a new podcast called Proxy and inventing a new journalism beat: emotional investigative journalism. Anita talks to Yowei about why and how she reports on emotions (...

Money problems are rarely just about money. In fact behavioral economists have shown that many of our financial decisions are driven by emotion, not logic. Anita talks to financial educator Chantel Chapman about her belief that before you can fix your finances, you have to deal with your trauma. Plus, financial therapist LaQueshia Clemons on a trauma-informed approach to helping couples deal with money.

Meet the guests:

- Chantel Cha...

For most of the first few decades of his life, Indigenous writer and filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat didn’t see much of his father, who left the family when Julian was 6. In the handful of times they did see each other over the years, that history of abandonment made it hard to connect. But when Julian was 28, he moved across the country and moved in with his dad to make a documentary and write a book about their family&rsquo...

Rae Garringer grew up on a sheep farm in rural West Virginia, and once they left for college and came out as queer, they weren't sure they could ever move back. They believed the story they’d been told: to thrive as an out, LGBTQ+ person, you have to live in a city. But when Rae did move back in 2011, they realized that story was a lie. Anita talks to Rae about making queer life work in the country — from navigating dat...

Sadie Dingfelder spent decades not recognizing people who knew her and not knowing why. At 39, she found an explanation: she is faceblind. She talks with Anita about how that discovery sent her down a journalistic rabbit hole that led her to rewrite a lot of her past and come to a fundamentally new understanding of her brain. Plus, her husband Steve joins the conversation to talk about how Sadie’s new diagnoses — includ...

For years, audio creator Helena de Groot felt almost certain that she did not want kids. Then, she got unexpectedly pregnant. That pregnancy was the first in a series of curveballs that set her on a path of questioning everything she thought she knew — not just about whether or not to have children, but about how to live with the doubt and uncertainty that comes with any big adult decision. Helena talks to Anita about this jo...

When Mary Cain stepped onto the track as a high schooler, it was clear that she was a once-in-a-generation kind of talent. Her rise was quick and spectacular, which made it all the more stunning that just a few years after going pro with Nike, she stepped back from competitive running. She joins Anita to talk about the physical and emotional abuse she says she experienced behind the scenes and the systemic change she is calling for...

Stuttering occurs in every culture with a spoken language. So why do many communities treat it as a source of shame? Two speech-language pathologists and a comedian help Anita question cultural assumptions about stuttering and explore the growing movement to embrace speech diversity.

Meet the guests:

- Dr. Derek Daniels, licensed and certified speech-language pathologist and associate professor in the department of Communication Scie...

How do you care for someone you struggle to communicate with ... and can never fully understand? That's the question anthropologist Danilyn Rutherford has been wrestling with for decades  — ever since it became clear that her daughter Millie would never speak, sign or use symbols to express herself. Danilyn talks with Anita about how mothering a multiply-disabled child challenged her beliefs about the importance of langu...

Comedian Chris Duffy believes everyone has a sense of humor. And if you think you don’t? That’s just years of adult socialization talking! He shares his roadmap for building a more humor-filled life, from learning to be present and notice the absurdities of the world to taking social risks. Plus, he and Anita workshop some comedy exercises that will not just get you laughing more — but also help you kickstart your...

When the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, journalist Ruth Whippman — nearly nine months pregnant with her third son — experienced a profound conflict. As a feminist, she celebrated the movement; as a mother, she worried: "How am I gonna raise these boys to be good?" This tension launched Ruth on a quest to understand modern American boyhood and what's not working. Ruth and her husband Neil Levine tell Anita about their...

Kaila Yu spent years as an Asian American pinup model, singer and actress, leaning into a hypersexualized image of Asian femininity and burying her doubts about it. But after the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, she started reckoning with how fetishization can lead to violence — and interrogating her own role in perpetuating harmful stereotypes. She talks with Anita about her new memoir. Plus, a sociologist breaks down how history...

Gen Z is anxious about climate change, and it’s impacting their family planning. Anita talks to researcher Jade Sasser, who's been studying young people’s attitudes about climate change and reproductive choices while unpacking her own experiences with climate anxiety. They’ll talk about how to manage climate emotions while making big life decisions, and how “the kid question” isn’t just about bab...

When you board a plane, flight attendants greet you with practiced smiles and seamless service. But there’s a lot of mental and emotional labor that passengers don’t see. Missy, a Hawaii-based flight attendant, takes Anita inside her world and shares stories from her close to five years on the job — from managing unruly passengers to dealing with medical emergencies. Travel journalist Natalie Compton also shares h...