Shows / Embodied
Embodied
Dig into the underdiscussed corners of the human experience. Each week, host Anita Rao leads intimate conversations with people unafraid to question what we think we know about identity, relationships and health.
Follow the show on Instagram at @embodiedwunc and on Bluesky at embodiedwunc.bsky.social. You can find Anita on Bluesky at asrao.bsky.social.
Episodes
- Embodied
The Healing Power Of Horror
Black horror writer Tananarive Due fell in love with the spectacle of horror when she was a little kid. But it was only after she was well into her horror…
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Coming out as Trans in Later Life
Jillian Celentano felt that something was different about her gender identity when she was five years old. But this was in the 1960s. “Transgender” wasn’t a…
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Navigating Chronic Insomnia In A Sleep-Obsessed Culture
For almost 29 years, journalist Jennifer Senior was a self-described “brilliant sleeper.” Then, one night, something changed…and Jennifer has struggled with…
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What It Takes To Make Art Your Life
Building a life as an artist is an uphill climb. After decades of hustling to make it work, writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest had one big question: How do you…
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Adapting in the Kitchen
How do you keep doing something that you love after your body changes ... and you can’t do it the way you used to? Yewande Komolafe was a cook for two decades…
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Two Brothers, One Uncertain Future
What would you do if you knew your brain would stop functioning normally in just a decade? For brothers Ansel Dow (31) and Cosmo Hinsman (26), this isn't…
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Incarceration & The Physical Body
Nearly 1.3 million people are held inside state and federal prisons across the U.S. What happens to a person’s physical body inside that carceral system — and…
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The Tools You Need For Building Better Groups
Priya Parker has spent decades thinking about what makes groups work. And she says keeping groups together requires skills most of us never learned. She tells…
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Building an Early Foundation for Healthy Sexuality
For many of us, a formal education about sexuality begins during puberty and only really gets going during adolescence. But in reality, exploration of our…
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Parenting Wisdom From An Interabled Couple
When Jessica Slice was 28 years old, a bout of heat exhaustion triggered an underlying neurological disorder that led to permanent physical disabilities. In…
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BONUS: Meet Embodied Guest Host Carvell Wallace
Anita is heading out on parental leave, but the show isn't going anywhere! This fall you'll still get an episode of Embodied in your feeds every week…
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When Sports Betting Sucks You In
More than half of American men between the ages of 18 and 49 have an active online sports betting account, and for the past year Atlantic staff writer McKay…
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The Case For Embracing Your Sweat
This summer’s heat waves have been brutal. But there’s one thing helping all of us make it through the soaring temperatures: sweat. Our bodies need to sweat to…
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Why Black Women’s Disordered Eating Is Overlooked
Despite a decade of restrictive behavior and a career path in mental health counseling, Alishia McCullough had never associated herself with the phrase eating…
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Matrescence: Motherhood As Metamorphosis
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…
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Everyday Spaces Weren’t Built For Fat Bodies. So What’s The Fix?
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…
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When Long Covid Rewrites Your Love Story
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…
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Think Picky Eating Is Inevitable? History Begs To Differ
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…
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A Journalist’s Solution to Emotional Conundrums
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…
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Money Trauma … And How To Deal With It
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…
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Native Fatherhood & Healing With Julian Brave NoiseCat
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…
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Building A Queer Life In The Country
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…
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Faceblindness & A Journey To Rediscover Your Brain Midlife
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…
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Making The Kid Decision ... And Learning To Live With It
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…
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Why The Former ‘Fastest Girl In America’ Wants To Change Sports
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…
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Stuttered: Diversifying The Way We Speak
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…
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How A Mother Learned To Connect Without Language
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…
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The Case For Taking Humor Seriously
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…
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A New Playbook For Raising Boys
When the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, journalist Ruth Whippman — nearly nine months pregnant with her third son — experienced a profound conflict. As a…
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Reckoning With The Asian Fetish
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…
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Climate Anxiety And The Choice To Parent
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…
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The Hidden Labor Of Flight Attendants
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…
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The Future of Trans Athletes in Sports
When Chris Mosier became the first openly trans athlete to qualify for Team USA in 2015, he catalyzed policy change for trans people in sports. Now, more than…
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Beyond Bromance: Searching For Deeper Male Friendship
American men are in a friendship recession. Compared to a few decades ago, five times as many men have no close friends. So what’s going on? Anita talks with…
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Inside The World of Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddies & Sugar Dating
When B. Chionne first heard about sugar dating in college, she was intrigued — what if in exchange for her time and attention she could earn enough money to…
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‘You Don’t Become a Witch, You Remember That You Are One’
Rebecca Auman is a witch. That’s not an insult — it literally says “head witch” on her LinkedIn profile. Rebecca has been able to read people and pick up on…
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The Healing Power Of Horror
Black horror writer Tananarive Due fell in love with the spectacle of horror when she was a little kid. But it was only after she was well into her horror…
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A Practical Guide To Poop
Nearly 40% of Americans say digestive troubles disrupt their daily lives. As the daughter of a gastroenterologist, that’s a statistic Anita can’t ignore. She…
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‘I’ve Got The Same Thing You Do’: Ehlers-Danlos Across Generations
Soph Myers-Kelley and his mom, René Myers, have always been close. As of five years ago, they also share a diagnosis: the connective tissue disorder…
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Why Is Good Food So Sexy?
Food and sex have been deeply intertwined in our cultural imagination for millennia. Anita talks with a cultural historian who has combed through centuries of…
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Tallying The Costs Of Being Undocumented
After more than a decade living in the U.S. without permanent legal status, Alix Dick calculated the cost of her survival: $1.9 million. That figure includes…
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Lessons Learned From Loving Birds
J. Drew Lanham’s life has been defined by birds. He grew up in rural South Carolina learning mystical stories about birds from his grandmother, emulating bird…
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Why Are We Afraid Of Baldness?
Like the majority of American men over 35, Anita's partner is balding...and they're both a little distressed about it. But why? She brings her questions to two…
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How Competitive Figure Skating Shaped a Sibling Relationship
Pair figure skating is a sport of coordination, musicality and high-risk maneuvers. Being successful requires a lot of trust and teamwork. So what is it like…
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The Art of Giving Good Advice
There are few things that are certain about 2026, but one of them is that at some point, you’ll be called upon for advice. Anita talks to Meghan Keane, the…
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Reimagining The Wedding Ceremony
The marriage rate in this country has fallen nearly 60% in the last half century. So what’s motivating those of us still choosing to say I do? Anita ponders…
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Coming Of Age As A Chinese Restaurant Kid
Curtis Chin grew up inside Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine. His great-grandfather first opened the Detroit restaurant in 1940, and in the 1970s and ‘80s Chung’s was…
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Sex And Intimacy After Sexual Assault
After being raped at 18, journalist Katie Simon had a burning question: How do you navigate sex and intimacy after sexual assault? Katie tells Anita about…
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Dating, Sex & Love With HIV
How does living with a condition that is so deeply stigmatized affect who and how we love? Anita meets a mixed-HIV status couple who shares how they've…
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Is Food The Key To Cultural Belonging?
Anita's been reckoning with what it means to stay connected to cultural identity as a mixed-race adult. And in pursuit of what things to prioritize, she's…
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Why It’s So Hard To Break Up With Fast Fashion
The consequences of fast fashion are well known: worker exploitation, environmental damage and poor quality items. And yet many of us keep buying it — either…
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How Fake Claims To Native Identity Cause Real Harm
Dina Gilio-Whitaker knows that it’s complicated to talk about Native American identity. She occupies a gray zone herself: she’s a legal descendant of the…
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How LGBTQ Seniors Are Aging In Community
When married couple Pat McAulay and Margaret Roesch were in their 40s, they had a shared dream for old age: living in a big house with other lesbians where…
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(Single) Mothered: Choosing To Parent Solo
There's a growing number of women challenging the expectation that you need a partner to have a child. Anita meets two single moms by choice. They talk about…
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The Sex Lives Of Gen Z (And Why They Matter)
You’ve likely seen some version of the headline: “Gen Z Is In a Sex Recession.” But there’s a lot more to the story. Journalist Carter Sherman takes Anita into…
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Desiring Disability in Fashion
Mainstream adaptive fashion lines are relatively new, but creating clothes to fit and flatter a range of bodies has long been part of disability culture. Anita…
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BONUS: A Preview of The Second Opinion with Dr. Sharon
On Dr. Sharon Malone’s new podcast, women take back the conversation on health with straight talk, real experience and the care we all deserve. You’ll hear…
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Navigating Chronic Insomnia In A Sleep-Obsessed Culture
For almost 29 years, journalist Jennifer Senior was a self-described “brilliant sleeper.” Then, one night, something changed…and Jennifer has struggled with…
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A Mission To Tell Trans History Differently
When Kit Heyam was first trying to understand their gender identity as an adolescent, they looked to history. But they only found stories that painted a very…
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Boomers On Psychedelics
It's been half a century since the psychedelic era, but some baby boomers are returning to the drugs of their youth — not for rock and roll, but to confront…