HealthierU
Produced and hosted by students at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health, HealthierU is a podcast that aims to make sense of the science behind human health. This season, we’re diving into our generation’s burning health questions. Questions like: Is it bad to use the internet to diagnose yourself? Why do so many athletes get eating disorders, and why are they so hard to spot? Is sugar really so dangerous? To find the answers, we’re talking to scientists, nutritionists, counselors, medical professionals and regular folks, every week on HealthierU.
Episodes
38 episodes
HealthierU | How Can We Find Meaning in College?
How do college students find purpose amidst the hustle and bustle of academic deadlines, internships, and social pressures? In this episode of HealthierU, host Abby Weisenfeld dives into the challenges and joys of discovering meaning in everyda...
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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11:30
HealthierU | What is POTS, and why are so many female athletes getting it?
More and more, otherwise healthy female athletes are getting diagnosed with something called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS, for short). Often, the first signs of POTS are feeling faint when standing up, or noticing a rapid hea...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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8:52
HealthierU | Inside Med Student Burnout: Who Heals the Healer?
Burnout, depression, and even suicide rates among physicians have reached alarming levels, raising the critical question: Who heals the healers? In this episode of HealthierU, we dive into the mental health challenges faced by healthca...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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13:01
HealthierU | Can bad posture affect your mood?
This episode delves into the growing epidemic of "tech neck,” a modern issue arising from our sedentary lifestyles and excessive screen use. We all know neck pain can be uncomfortable, but did you know it can also increase stress, impact your m...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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9:41
HealthierU | What Are Food Allergies, Really?
Sisters Yulan and Joleigh Yim used to love eating Korean food — until they were both diagnosed with food allergies as adults. In this episode, we explore the science behind food allergies with
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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9:22
HealthierU | Can Tech Solve the Problem of Forever Chemicals?
Every sip of water you take might contain chemicals that will outlast your great-grandchildren. In this eye-opening episode, we explore how so-called "forever chemicals” called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) became embedded in our d...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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10:08
HealthierU | How Does Extreme Heat Affect Mental Health?
As climate change continues to warm our planet, understanding the effects of heat on our health will become even more important. Yet many people aren’t aware of the impact that extreme heat can have on our mental health. On this episode of ...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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8:02
HealthierU | Is Your “Food Baby” Actually Gut Bacteria?
We all know that feeling after a large, delicious meal, where our food baby overtakes our body. You know the one, where you feel extremely bloated, with a swollen gut? If you continuously feel abdominal pain or discomfort, it may be caused by a...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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8:39
HealthierU | How Do Microplastics Affect Our Health?
Microplastics are all around us, from the fabric of our clothes to the Tupperware container we warm our leftovers in—they’ve even been found in the human brain. We rely on plastic for affordability and convenience, but what are the health conse...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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9:01
HealthierU | Why Isn’t There a Male Birth Control Pill?
Between IUDs, pills, hormonal patches, Depo-Provera injections and many other methods, women trying to prevent pregnancies have an array of options—none of them all that appealing. Let’s turn to the contraceptives available to men: only condoms...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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17:19
HealthierU | How Legit is TikTok’s Viral Carnivore Diet?
Imagine a diet consisting only of two things: meat and dairy. Welcome to the carnivore diet, the internet's newest diet trend. Carnivores are all over social media raving about how the diet helped them lose weight and cure chronic disease — but...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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11:28
HealthierU | Season 2 Trailer (Spring 2025)
The Healthier U podcast from Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health addresses essential health issues in our changing world. This season explores topics like fad diets, birth control, mental health, microplastics, and climate c...
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1:52
HealthierU | DIY Psychiatry
Have you ever struggled with your mental health and sought answers for your problems on the internet or social media? If so, this episode is for you, as host Lauryn Palacio dives into the complex practice of self-diagnosis in psychiatry. While ...
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Season 3
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Episode 8
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11:21
HealthierU | How Does Air Pollution Affect Our Health?
In this episode of HealthierU, Bobby Mosely Jr. tries to answer the question: how does air pollution affect our health? Bobby speaks with Lauren Cohen, a student at Emory University, and Dr. Jeremy Sarnat, an associate professor at the Rollins ...
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Season 3
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Episode 7
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10:20
HealthierU | Is Sugar Really So Bad?
When host Kayla Barry was diagnosed with PCOS in high school, she had to give up her beloved Swedish Fish. In this episode, Kayla explores the multifaceted world of sugar, from how it functions in the body to its place in history, with help of ...
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Season 3
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Episode 6
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8:53
HealthierU | We Need To Talk About Autism and Sex Ed
Public school sexual education is patchy enough to begin with, but what about students who aren’t in the mainstream classes? For people with intellectual disabilities, sexual education is lacking at best and nonexistent at worst. With a populat...
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Season 3
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Episode 5
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8:11
HealthierU | Why Aren’t There More Men in Nursing?
Nursing shortages are nothing new in the United States—the problem goes back almost a hundred years. And since men make up only 12% of the nursing workforce, the solution appears simple: Get more men to join the ranks. But how? On this week’s e...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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8:35
HealthierU | What is Ikigai, and Can It Make Me Happy?
In this episode, Alexa Espinosa explores the science of happiness, from ancient Greece to Japan and beyond. A TikTok creator shares his experience using the Japanese concept of Ikigai to enhance life satisfaction; science suggests it might even...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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12:01
HealthierU | Why Is It So Hard To Spot Eating Disorders in Athletes?
Everyone knows an athlete. What is harder to know is why so many of them are at risk for developing an eating disorder: as high as 25%, according to some research. In this episode, host Meg Woodward takes a deep dive into this question with the...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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10:13
HealthierU | Can Doulas and Home Births Make Childbirth Safer for Black Women?
Maternal death rates in the Black community are alarming. Some think the solution may lie in empowering Black mothers to give birth at home, with culturally appropriate assistance offered by doulas. In this episode, host Amaris Calhoun draws on...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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11:07
COVID Chronicles | Exercise & Training Strategies for a Post-Pandemic World
With the rise of social media usage, exercise and diet culture have influenced a large number of people, and today’s youth is among them. In this episode, Snehitha Vardhineni speaks to experts in the field as well as today’s youth to explore tr...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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1:22:34
COVID Chronicles | Quarantined Happiness: The Pandemic’s Effects on Young Adults & Teens
What is on your mind? Can you handle one more thing? Quarantined Happiness aims to set the stage on the conversation around mental health and the effects of the pandemic on society’s most fragile, yet influential group — the youth.Featu...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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41:13
COVID Chronicles | The NeuroTech Talk: Neurotechnology & the Impacts of COVID-19
This NeuroTech Talk episode features four people from different walks of life and different stages in their neurotechnology careers to discuss how COVID-19 has impacted their work as scholars and researchers — as well as the future of ...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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1:05:22
COVID Chronicles | College Campus Hookup Culture During a Pandemic
Hookup culture is a unique cultural phenomenon whose discussion has increased in public discourse in the past few decades. College campuses are often characterized as hubs for hookup culture, and Emory is no different. In this episode, we unpac...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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1:04:27
COVID Chronicles | Navigating Nutrition & Food Advice Online During a Pandemic
This podcast episode focuses on the complex intersection of nutrition and health through the lens of social media by considering the quality and messages of content posted online, the behaviors that are reinforced, and the impacts these compone...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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1:07:36
