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Anita Rao

Host and Executive Editor, "Embodied"
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Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.

She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.

You can send Anita an e-mail at arao@wunc.org.

  • An illustration of a woman with long, brown hair, a white shirt, blue jean and white sneakers. She has a curious expression. She is walking up steps made out of various self-help books with titles that read: “ The Four Agreements,” “ “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” “YOU ARE A BADASS,” "Atomic Habits,” and “The Secret.” The background is a light green color with large white and yellow flowers.
    You 2.0: where the self-help industry succeeds, and where it misses the mark
    Paige Miranda
    Self-help has existed in some form since the dawn of human civilization and has grown into a robust industrial complex. But does self-help really make us better people?
  • An illustration of a woman with long, brown hair, a white shirt, blue jean and white sneakers. She has a curious expression. She is walking up steps made out of various self-help books with titles that read: “ The Four Agreements,” “ “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” “YOU ARE A BADASS,” "Atomic Habits,” and “The Secret.” The background is a light green color with large white and yellow flowers. Across the top right are the blue words “(Self) Helped” on a yellow background.
    (Self) Helped: Inside The Industry That Wants To Change Your Life
    Paige Miranda
    Anita is committed to self-improvement but skeptical of self-help. She brings her qualms and questions to the experts: Kristen Meinzer, a podcaster who has lived by the rules of more than 50 self-help books, and Beth Blum, a scholar who's traced the genre back to its roots. Plus Sondra Rose Marie, a former self-help fan, shares how the industry has failed her as a woman of color.
  • An illustration of a person's chest, without a view of their face. The person is wearing a dark shirt under a denim jacket that features several colorful pins: a pansexual flag, a lightning bolt, a friendly mushroom, a smiley face with a stuck-out tongue, a slice of pepperoni pizza, a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles and a pin that says "Stutter Proudly."
    Stuttering Out Loud: Embracing Speech Diversity and Fighting Shame Around Stuttering
    Kaia Findlay
    Stuttering has been the butt of many jokes. People who stutter are working to change that.
  • An illustration of a person's chest, without a view of their face. The person is wearing a dark shirt under a denim jacket that features several colorful pins: a pansexual flag, a lightning bolt, a friendly mushroom, a smiley face with a stuck-out tongue, a slice of pepperoni pizza, a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles and a pin that says "Stutter Proudly." The word "Stuttered" is in the lower lefthand corner of the illustration.
    Stuttered: Diversifying The Way We Speak (Revisited)
    Kaia Findlay
    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.
  • An illustration featuring two panels side-by-side. In the left panel is a little girl with brown curly hair lying on her stomach and writing on a piece of paper with a pencil. In the right panel is a man in a dark khaki uniform with a number on it and wearing a beanie. He is reading a piece of paper. The image is outlined in black, which also separates the two panels.
    When a father becomes incarcerated
    Kaia Findlay
    Many incarcerated people are also parents. Their children navigate social stigma and barriers to staying in contact with their loved ones.
  • An illustration featuring two panels side-by-side. In the left panel is a little girl with brown curly hair lying on her stomach and writing on a piece of paper with a pencil. In the right panel is a man in a dark khaki uniform with a number on it and wearing a beanie. He is reading a piece of paper. The image is outlined in black, which also separates the two panels. The word "Separated" is in the lower right-hand corner.
    Separated: Growing Up With An Incarcerated Father (Revisited)
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita reconnects with the woman who changed her thinking on incarceration: her beloved college thesis adviser Ashley Lucas. Ashley reflects on her father's 20-year prison sentence and the untold stories of families navigating incarceration from the outside. Journalist Sylvia A. Harvey also shares how losing her mother to asthma and her father to a life sentence in prison before she was 6 years old led her to investigate the carceral system as a whole.
  • An illustration of a white person in profile. The person has long brown hair tucked into the collar of their dark blue shirt. They are wearing large gold earrings, plum-colored lipstick and heavy eye makeup in white, black and purple shades. There are pimples and acne scars along their jawline, and three star-shaped pimple patches on their cheekbones that match the colors of their eye makeup. The background is light purple with white flowers.
    Living with adult acne in the era of ‘perfect skin’
    Gabriela Glueck
    In this digital age of flawless, perfect, poreless skin, dealing with adult acne can be incredibly isolating. Two skinfluencers and a photographer open up about their acne journeys, the pressure for perfect skin, and the work they are doing to normalize one of the world’s most common skin conditions.
  • An illustration of a white person in profile. The person has long brown hair tucked into the collar of their dark blue shirt. They are wearing large gold earrings, plum-colored lipstick and heavy eye makeup in white, black and purple shades. There are pimples and acne scars along their chin and jawline, and three star-shaped pimple patches on their cheekbones that match the colors of their eye makeup. The background is light purple with white flowers.
    Popped: Adult Acne In The 'Perfect Skin' Era
    Gabriela Glueck
    Dealing with pimples and blackheads in middle school is practically a right of passage. But when acne is a defining feature of your adulthood... it’s a whole different experience. Anita meets two acne content creators and a photographer who talk about the emotional toll of severe acne, the myth of normal skin, and the responsibility of being today’s skincare influencers.
  • An illustration of a scrapbook featuring four photos of an older white man, who is bald, has a beard and wears glasses. In the photos clockwise from upper right photo: an older white woman hugs the man from behind; the man in front of a big house and trees talking with a Black man; the man with a young girl blowing out candles on a chocolate birthday cake that says ‘95’; the man sitting at a picnic table playing bridge with two other old white men.
    The relationships and communities that sustain the last decades of our lives
    Gabriela Glueck
    For older Americans, social isolation is a public health crisis. As we age, our relationships evolve and our communities change — how do we accept these changes and tackle their challenges?
  • An illustration of a scrapbook featuring four photos of an older white man, who is bald, has a beard and wears glasses. In the photos clockwise from upper right photo: an older white woman hugs the man from behind; the man in front of a big house and trees talking with a Black man; the man with a young girl blowing out candles on a chocolate birthday cake that says ‘95’; the man sitting at a picnic table playing bridge with two other old white men. At the top of the scrapbook pages is the word ‘Cared’ in purple.
    Cared: The Last Decades Of Our Lives
    Gabriela Glueck
    More Americans are living into their 90s and 100s than ever before, and it blows Anita's mind that so few people are talking about it! She meets a 94-year-old man who opens up about the changes in his romantic, platonic, and familial relationships, and his two kids join to share their perspectives. Plus, a woman in her 70s introduces Anita to an innovative model for combating social isolation in your senior years.
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