Make America Healthy Again... Actually (with Emily Oster)

“Optimization” is everywhere. We’re supposed to optimize our health, optimize our parenting, optimize our career and body and every other aspect of our lives. Wellness bros are out there writing articles and producing podcasts about how data can help us optimize our way to perfection.

But you know what? Not everyone can start every day by drinking lemon water barefoot outdoors for an hour. Some of us have kids!

This week on the podcast, we talked to Emily Oster, the founder of ParentData and the author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet. As a woman who professionally helps parents (and everyone else) better understand data, she had so much good advice.

Turns out, data can help us make good decisions but there’s no one way to “optimize” our parenting or our lives. It’s about balancing data alongside our own experiences, values, and the reality of our daily lives. There’s a stereotype that women only rely on their hearts (our “women’s intuition”) while men rely on evidence and data. But we’re all capable of doing both, regardless of our gender!

The answer isn’t ignoring data - not at all. It’s about understanding the data and making the best decision for ourselves and our families. As Emily said, “data isn’t bossy.”

It’s also not political. We talked with Emily about RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign and how there are nuggets of good advice in there, like making school lunches healthier, alongside disinformation about vaccines and autism. It’s not about listening to one person or one study — it’s about learning how to understand the data for ourselves.

Understanding scientific studies or other kinds of data might feel intimidating, but don’t underestimate yourself — you can understand data! Every data point in a spreadsheet or a medical study is actually just a person. A story. Data isn’t the be-all end-all; it’s about telling a better, truer story.

This was such a fascinating conversation and we’re so grateful to Emily for joining us. Don’t miss this week’s episode!

For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue.

You can learn more about us at www.redwine.blue or follow us on social media! 

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YouTube: @RedWineBlueUSA

Transcript

How To Not Lose Your Sh!t Episode 28: “Make America Healthy Again… Actually (with Emily Oster)”

Katie: Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Not Lose Your Shit. I'm Katie Paris, the founder of Red Wine and Blue. 

LaFonda: And I'm LaFonda Cousin, a part-time yoga instructor, self-care advocate, and the chief people officer here at Red Wine and Blue. 

Katie: Alright, so today we were joined by Emily Oster. She's a researcher and an author who's become an important resource for moms by sharing actual facts and data about pregnancy, parenting, and personal health. She runs parentdata.org and she also hosts a podcast called Wellness Actually, which, I love that so much. 

Emily is one of those people who I've known about for a long time because she's such an important voice on parenting and health, but I hadn't ever had the chance to actually talk to her before. LaFonda, what did you take away? Was there anything from our interview with Emily that surprised you? 

LaFonda: I think what I took away is a little bit about like what we already know, but just need someone to validate, right? Like what does the data tell us, what does our heart tell us, what do we know, and that it's okay to use both of those things in real time to make the decisions that are best for us.

I think sometimes that we're like... What does the research say? What does this thing on the internet say? And I have to do all of these things to make sure that I'm the healthiest version of myself. And like, we're so stressed out about doing all of these things to make sure that I'm keeping up with whatever the trends are right now that I'm like not actually doing myself any good. And like, am I doing the best that I can based on the data and then also what is best for me, what is best for my family? 

And sometimes I think you need someone really smart to validate that for you. So I don't think that that was surprising to me. I think just sometimes you need to hear someone say it in a way that makes sense.

Katie: I was really excited to hear her so clearly reject what I see as a lot of maybe like data bro culture in terms of this idea that like it's either the data or you're just being emotional. Like take the emotion out of it, take the heart out of it. Like let's just talk about the data. 

LaFonda: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: It actually has me thinking a lot about my breast cancer journey. There were so many. decision points when, you know, you know, I was diagnosed over a year ago, stage one, I knew from the beginning I was gonna be okay, but there were still so many decisions to make about like which surgery, which treatment. I still have to make decisions and my ongoing treatment to, you know, make sure that this cancer doesn't come back.

And there can be a lot of…. the data is, is good data, but it can be deceiving along the way. You know? Like you can be told for example, “well, you can choose this treatment course, or you can choose this treatment course, which will further reduce your chances of having a recurrence by 50%.” But then you dig deeper in there and you realize, “wait a minute, but doing this course already reduced me to a 7% chance of having a recurrence.” In the meantime, there's all these really potentially very difficult things in terms of, you know, how that's gonna impact my day-to-day life. 

And, and if I don't bring anything other than the data into making that decision, I'm not gonna be thinking about… how is my day-to-day life gonna be impacted?

LaFonda: Yeah. 

Katie: The reason to not get cancer again is to live and to be an active mom who can show up for my kids and, you know, and, and, and be creative in my professional life. And so I think that, you know, the best doctors these days, and I have, you know, largely had the best interactions with women doctors actually, who helped me put data in context, you know, to make the best decision for me. And also understand, like, “okay, you can make this decision now, see how it goes, and make adjustments along the way based on your life experience.”  

LaFonda: Yeah. There's so many data points to take in, even in that journey, right? Like when I think about all of the things that you just said, my mind immediately goes to where does that data come from? Who was that research done on? Who was the subset? Because we also know a lot of medical data does not take into account women in general. Um, breast cancer data probably does, but like... are Black women included? What is the breakdown of who was included in the research and how does that impact me? 

And so there's, right, there's the data, but then there's also more questions that come up about who's included in those subsets. And so you have to think about all of those different things when you're thinking about… I'm including all of this actual hard data against, then how does it impact my day-to-day life?

Katie: Yeah, that's such a good point, just in terms of the limitations of medical data when it comes to women, furthermore when it comes to Black women, other women of color, they're just, the studies have not gone deep and wide enough at all. And that's something we have to keep pushing for. 

I do think that talking to Emily made me feel less overwhelmed in terms of thinking about data because she made me feel empowered to use it in a contextual way. 

LaFonda: Mm-hmm. And I think that when people see spreadsheets and numbers, data and research, it's hard to, like, you feel intimidated by that, but when you really think about it's just people, right? Like it feels like numbers, it feels like spreadsheets, it feels like research, but it really is people and what people's experience is telling us in terms of a story. And when you hear it said like that, it does feel less overwhelming. And I think when we take the approach to data is storytelling, that's what makes it feel less overwhelming.

Katie: We know again and again, that like a data point, a stat never wins an argument, right? 

LaFonda: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: However, remembering that the data tells a story, not only did it come from humans who were, you know, putting all this together and understanding that context is a better way to understand the data itself, but the data tells stories.

It's not that I don't wanna incorporate data into my arguments and making the case for whatever it is that I care about. But it's looking for the stories that the data ultimately illustrates. You know, so when we are trying to go up against disinformation, it's not that we shouldn't use data, it's just that we should use the stories that the data supports. It's, it's telling that truer, better story. 

LaFonda: I think that's right. I mean, it makes you feel like you can use both things to make the right decision for you. I think that's what I took away most is you don't have to be, especially for women, we don't have to be all one thing. And usually we're told that women are, you said this like women are all heart and you have to make the decisions based on how you feel and like. No you don't. And men don't always have to make the decisions just based on the research. Like everyone can do both things and I feel better. I think people will feel better about being able to do both, listening to Emily, because she makes it clear, I think, how to do that and why it's important. 

Katie: Yeah. Alright, let's bring on Emily Oster. 

LaFonda: Welcome to the podcast, Emily. Thank you for joining us. 

Emily: Thank you for having me. 

LaFonda: So we are just here to talk to you about your philosophies on wellness. There are a thousand different philosophies about wellness and everyone's certain. Always that theirs is the one and only correct way, especially wellness bros like Andrew Huberman. Your approach seems to be more about balancing risk rather than shame or black and white rules. Tell us a little bit more about that. 

Emily: Yeah, so I would say my approach to wellness takes two pieces. So first, I am really passionate about data and about understanding what the evidence says about many of the things we're told. And so wellness is full of things that are true, but also things that are definitely not true. 

LaFonda: Mm-hmm. 

Emily: And where there's a correlation but not causality. And I really wanna help people understand which are the things that we actually know might matter and which don't. 

And then there's a second piece, which is… I talk to an audience of people who are busy. It's a lot of parents, it's a lot of people who have jobs and other stuff. And they need to know, not only does this matter, but like what are the most important things. You know, if I had an hour every day, like, or a half an hour or 20 minutes, like what are the things I wanna prioritize?

And so a lot of how I try to come into the wellness is to say, “Hey, I'm gonna tell you if this is supported by data, and then I'm gonna tell you, like, how important it is and help you think about prioritizing and balancing risks and benefits.” I guess I feel like a lot of this more, you know, broey space is sort of assuming that we all have like nine hours a day to be constantly optimizing our wellness. It's standing outside, drinking lemon water at our bare feet and it's like, you know, no, my children will not allow me to stand outside drinking lemon water in my bare feet. 

LaFonda: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Emily: They need something. 

LaFonda: Yeah. As a part-time yoga instructor and someone who does it, because I just, I feel like it is what helps me feel a little grounded in a busy life. Feel a little more grounded as a mom, feel a little bit more grounded just as someone who has a million things going on. I absolutely understand that I don't have eight hours a day to spend in a Pilates studio. 

What brought you here? Like, what brought you to this place and, and made you want to help people sort of balance that?

Emily: Yeah, so I'm trained as an economist. I am a professor of economics and so my training is really in data and in balancing risks and benefits. Those are kind of the core elements here. And my, my academic research, a lot of it is about, um, actually a lot of it's about diet, uh, and sort of thinking about what do we know from the data about nutrition. 

But I came into this kind of talking to a broader audience through pregnancy. So I wrote, uh, I wrote a book called Expecting Better, and then another book called Cribsheet. And I've been spending a lot of the last decade talking to parents about what the data says about pregnancy, about early parenting. And a lot of that is around questions about food and nutrition and so on with your kids. 

And I've been moving into talking, thinking more about those questions for adults, because parents come to me and they say, you know, “okay, that's great about my kid, but like, I wanna know about ultra processed foods and I wanna know about my kid, but also for, for myself.” And much of my academic research is kind of really about this more for adults.

And so, uh, so that is how I come into this through a lens of data risks and benefits, and then also just being a person in the world too who wants answers. It's my main motivation, is I want answers. 

LaFonda: Don't we all? Don't we all.

Katie: I mean, it seems like in general, you are constantly trying to get us to be informed by data, but maybe not completely governed by it because there is so much data and we have to figure out how to apply it in context to our given situation, whether we're talking about “is it safe to have a few sips of wine in the third trimester of pregnancy?” Or “if my kids are on screen time for more than 30 minutes, are their brains going to, I don't know, fry, rot, blow up, something?” I don't know, like the warnings are pretty dire out there. 

LaFonda and I are both moms, LaFonda's daughter is older than mine, just graduating college, I've got a couple kids in elementary school. So we talk about this a lot. Like what is our relationship with data as moms in general? 

Emily: So sometimes people will ask me, you know, “well, how do I know if I should make this decision based on data or based on my gut?” And I, I don't like that question because I think that it suggests that those are two approaches as opposed to there being one approach to making decisions, which is to use both.

Katie: Yes. 

Emily: So it is useful to have data – actual good data, which tells you, you know, how important something is. So data that would say, you know, what is the potential impact of having a few sips of wine at the end of pregnancy? Or what is the impact of screen time and how much do we know about that? Like those are important inputs and they have to be considered inside your preferences, your constraints, other things that you care about. 

Data's not bossy. Data is never gonna tell you what to do. It's going to be an input to your decisions. And sometimes people will say, you know, “look, I understand that maybe the evidence points a little bit in this direction, but like, this is really important. Like my preferences are really strong.” I want people to recognize that that's how we make good decisions. We take the evidence, we take our preferences, and we combine them and we make choices. 

Katie: What you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. 'cause I do think that sometimes there is this dichotomy where people think the data that's head and then gut, that's heart, that's emotional. Right? And this actually can, you know… when you think about women, of course a stereotype there is that we're gonna be just, just the heart. We're not taking into account the hard facts and like that's women's intuition. But what about the, what about those facts that the guys are gonna bring along? 

Like, I hate that, right? I mean, I actually think what's so great about women is our ability to take in a lot of information, process different points of view – yes data, yes our own life experience, yes our relationships– and integrate that into something that maybe that ultimately I do believe a lot in my gut, but my gut is taking in a lot of information. It is not divorced from information. And I think that that has been really unhelpful to how we think about decision making in terms of thinking somehow that like, wait, no, we need to separate completely the emotion and gut and intuition away from data, rather than recognizing that we are not AI, we are not computers, we are whole people that get to integrate a lot of complicated things into a context and get to answers that are based in our humanity, rather than divorcing ourselves from it. 

Emily: I also think when we, when we push too much on the like data is the only thing, we actually like, we can overreact to effects that are actually very small and from the standpoint of your life shouldn't really be relevant, right? We can sort of say, “well, you know, this study showed that if you do, you know, the following 45 complicated things every night, like, you know, you will sleep 2% better,” right? 

And you'll be like, “okay, I guess you have to do those things” as opposed to saying, “well actually like that will cost me four hours every night and it will only deliver a little bit of benefit. I need to balance that benefit against the other things that I could do with that, with that time.” And if we get into a space where we're taking every tiny piece of data and saying, “I must optimize” in the kind of like Brian Johnson style optimization, like, “I have to do everything exactly right,” then we miss the trade-offs that are very real. 

Katie: Yeah. To me this relates a lot to, you know, Red Wine and Blue. We are working with women all across the country who are coming together to make a difference in their communities, and I think that when we try to make a difference in our communities, the data is so important. So is a lot of other contextual information about our community, the priorities of that community.

And again, I think sometimes data points within a political situation can be dropped on people's heads and people can have these knee jerk reactions of saying, you know, “we need to do this or that.” And instead, what I love about organizing with women in local communities is that we are taking in a lot of information, a lot of context.

I'm just wondering for you, as someone who is offering a lot of perspective on issues that can get politicized, you know, how do you suggest, like for women listening and trying to figure out like, “okay, I want to protect my community from ICE raids,” you know, and “how do I contend with what is, what is enough research and data as we go about our local activism?”

Emily: I think one of the lessons, maybe even from the pandemic for me, is that like in a political context, data is not always as, as, uh, compelling as I wish that it were. And so we really do need to think about how does any given piece of evidence... first, how does it combine with, you know, what's realistic in this setting or what's gonna be possible, or what are the values that are kind of relevant here?

And so most of the time we will have a piece of data that comes from a kind of broader context, but we sort of need to bring it into maybe it’s our personal family context in some of the stuff I do, but into the like social context that we're, that we're in. And again, the data itself will not be bossy.

I think the other piece of this that feels so important to me is when you're talking to people about evidence and how it should inform your decisions, we gotta remember that people are pretty susceptible to anecdote and they have a hard time with evidence. So the more you can make that evidence tell a story that connects to something that people understand, no one looks at a spreadsheet and they're like, “you're right, I understand that.” 

Even though inside the spreadsheet there are people and how can we make it clear that the spreadsheet is, is people with experiences who you might really connect to. And then the spreadsheet is kind of showing you that in a bigger, in a bigger picture, that translation's real hard.

Katie: That's so helpful. 'cause it is true, like the anecdote can be very powerful in some pretty negative ways actually, I think, in politics and then we try to come back and say, “well that's not what… look at this stat, look at this data, the dataset” is never the way to win an argument. But remembering, like, “okay, but let's tell stories that are actually grounded in the stats, in the data so that we can tell better, truer stories” than maybe the fearmongering anecdote.

Speaking of fearmongering in our political spaces, um, a lot of moms have been drawn into the Robert, the RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Make America Healthy Again of it all. You know, I always feel like... There's actually so much of MAHA that is, is good. There's so many good kernels in there, right? I mean, I want my kids to eat healthy food. I want there to be clean water and I don't want there to be toxins, you know, in, in our air. 

But yet at the same time, there's also so much disinformation that has been circulated by RFK and those trying to sort of politicize this MAHA movement, like claiming that, you know, vaccines or, or Tylenol cause autism. Do you have any advice for how we can talk to people about health in a way that gets beyond this politicization? 

Emily: That is a tough question. Um, because I, I think you're, I'm absolutely aligned with where you are on this, that, you know, the, there are pieces of this movement I think are great. Like if, you know, like I'd love if we could make school lunches better. For most kids, that's the healthiest meal they get offered all day and like, boy, it would be great if we thought in creative ways about, you know, how do we get kids to eat the vegetables? It's not enough to just take the vegetables. Like we gotta make the vegetables interesting. How do you make the vegetables fun?

Like there's all kinds of really important questions and people's diets are not where we think that they should be. So that side of it feels to me like there's a real opportunity. We haven't really developed that opportunity. And then on the other side, there's the vaccine stuff, which is all terrible.

So I think what's really, what is really hard there, and I wish that I had a better answer, is it is very hard to say “here are some things that are good and here are some things that are bad.” It's much easier to say, “This person is terrible. Everything that they're saying is a disaster, is like a terrible disaster.” And, and that's not true here. Like most, much of it is not good, but some of it is good. And so how do we kind of, how do we help people understand enough about what the evidence says that they can actually separate out the good from the bad?

Or when you tell them like, “here's what the evidence says about this, here's something that's important, here's something that's less important” that people can, can parse. I see a lot of my job as trying to pull people along just a little bit more in terms of their understanding of statistics and, and data so they can be better consumers of more nuanced statements. But… it's just a big challenge. 

LaFonda: A lot of people are intimidated by, so you, you hear the kernels and you're like, “Yes. That sounds good to me. But also I see him on TV and I hear what he's saying, most of the time he sounds a little crazy.” 

But people are intimidated by data and intimidated by the research. How do you talk to people about finding the nuggets of truth and sort of deciphering the information for themselves so they can start to make those decisions based on what you talked about earlier? Both the data and like what is best for them personally, the head and the heart. 

Emily: I so firmly believe that people can understand data better than they do. And that actually you are totally capable of this. So my first approach to this is to just constantly be trusting that if I explain it enough and you see it enough times, you see it enough different situations, like you'll start to get it. And I would say the best professional moments for me are when people are like, “I saw this new study and then I remembered what you had said about this other study, and so then I knew I should ignore it.” And I was like, “Ah!” I went, you know, “That's, that's it!” 

So I, I think it, it really, this is not a mystery, you know? Talk to people about like, where does data come from? People are, “oh, I guess it just comes out of the world.” It's like, no. Data comes from people. Just, we ask people, you know, how do you know? Like “how do we know this number? Well, we asked a bunch of people and then we averaged what they said.” Like you understand asking people, you understand averages. That's it! Now you understand where this comes from and the more we can help people in those steps and reiterate that and, and trust that they're able to understand and they're able to hear those explanations, the more people will be able to like… learn to fish for themselves on, on this kind of information.

One of the biggest mistakes we make in the public health establishment, in my view, is too much like top down rules and just telling people, “well, I'm an expert and I, you know, because of my expertness, I know that you should do X, Y, and Z.” Then people don't understand why you said that or what is the evidence behind that? Or just like, then when they're faced with someone else saying, “well, I'm also an expert and I say you should do A, B, and C,” it's like, well, actually now I have no ability to parse which, which thing it is. 

And if we can explain why, then I think we get further. And that's, I, you know, I, I have this exercise, I talk to people all the time about, you know, I have like, I'll pick like one piece of data and be like, “where does this, where does this data come from?” I usually pick, like, “how tall are Americans on average?” Like, how do we know that? You know, there's some number you could report, like where does that come from? And you can really get very far with that question to help people understand. And I've done that with like 11 year olds. I've done that with corporation members at Ivy League universities. It’s a widely understood thing and you can really pull people, sort of pull people along on it. 

LaFonda: Yeah. So you are on the internet and you are telling people about data. How do you do this work without letting the negativity, naysayers, that kind of thing get to you? What keeps you grounded? 

Emily: One piece is I try very hard to only say things I think are true. And, you know, being able to come back and say, you know, I understand this person disagrees with me and tells me that I'm a terrible person, but like I am really confident that what I said was right. And so that's too bad that they think that.

I think the second thing is, several years ago, right in the middle of COVID, when people were really yelling at me a lot, I listened to a podcast with Glennon Doyle about not taking criticism into your house. Like she had this mailbox analogy, and I think about it all the time. It's like, people can put stuff in your mailbox, but you get to choose which pieces of mail come into your house. And so I really try hard to choose which pieces of mail come into my criticism house.

And then I run a lot. That's my main, uh, other thing. I just run a lot. So I work through a lot of things. 

Katie: We were gonna ask you about that actually, 'cause you post about it a lot, which we love, and we wanted to ask… you know, actually a couple of weeks ago we had Amelia Nagoski on the podcast and we were talking about burnout. And she talked a lot about how important it is to complete the cycle when we're feeling stress to, you know, not just push it away, but our body has to physically process it. And that, you know, things like sleep, creativity or even exercise can help us do that.

And so is, is that explicitly one of the ways that you personally deal with stress? And also, you know, do you have any other strategies? Because there's no question you are taking on a lot of stress by being in the middle of a lot of these public debates. 

Emily: Um, that is why I run. And no, I don't have any other strategies, which is not ideal. I have only, I'm always like, “people should put multiple things in their toolbox.” I have one thing in my toolbox, and so sometimes I get in, like if I, I was like injured a couple weeks ago and it was a terrible disaster. My husband was like, “are there other things?” I was like, “no, this is the only thing! It's one thing!”

Um, but it's, you know, for me, the kind of routine of, you know, getting up in the morning, having a cup of coffee, like having something to eat, 'cause you should not run fasted, and then like, going outside and, and being by myself. Or being with friends. Like that's a really grounding part of my day.

And it's also like for me, an opportunity to sort of experiment with failure in a low stakes environment. Like, you know, I, I run pretty competitively, but that means sometimes I don't run as fast as I wish that I would. And nobody cares except for me. And so it's like a good opportunity to be like, “okay, well how can I work past this stupid failure feeling in a context that's irrelevant?”

Katie: You mentioned running with friends too. Where do you find community in your life, whether it's just, you know, in a more social sense or a supportive professional environment, you know, maybe with other women or other people who work in your space who also, you know, experience the stress of it all?

Emily: Yeah, I mean, these, a few things. So I have, um, I have some very close friends from college, uh, who are, you know, always the, the best sources. And then, you know, I've over time developed some good, you know, good relationships with people who have done similar things in the world. Um, people who I admire work-wise, who are willing to get on a call, you know, to talk about like, “here's a problem I'm having, here's, you know, like, how should I deal with this?”

And then I have a bunch of running friends, uh, which is like a totally great and different set of people who are not at all in my professional life and don't care very much about, you know, what I'm doing, uh, professionally. And that's, um, that's also really fun. 

Katie: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like incorporating, you know, ways as Amelia advised us to be able to physically process the stress is important for you as it is for everyone else. And also I, I remember that episode of We Can Do Hard Things as well. It also reminds me of how Brene Brown talks about like, you don't need to deal with the critics who are not in the arena with you. You know? I mean, people are just dropping bombs and they're doing it on social media, sitting in their basement. 

Like, this is your option about whether or not to take that on and the agency we have in terms of doing that. But all of that also seems to me to be relevant to how we process data at the end of the day too, and recognizing that we, it's not about cherry picking. Instead, I love that about what you're saying in terms of learning how to identify good data. 

It's sort of the learning how to fish rather than just taking the fish in terms of like, here's data and from a quote unquote expert, here's data from another quote unquote expert. Instead being good consumers of data, uh, which is just information from other human beings. It makes so much sense to me. 

And it also feels like a potential pathway towards some common ground. And it's why I love working at, at the local level, right? Because it's like we can process that data at a local level and a, and metabolize it, you know, together in a way that I feel like is easier to get to those solutions, you know?

Emily: Yeah. I mean, anytime we're like the… the more you move up in politics, the, like in terms of the size of the thing, the more it's about saying things rather than doing things. And so when you're at the very local level and you're like, “oh, we're actually trying to get something done, and we have to think about how the data combines with, you know, what people are willing to do”... the more you can get in there, the more likely something is to actually happen. 

Katie: I've never heard it said quite like that, that the bigger that, you know, the more you get national in politics, it becomes more about saying things rather than doing things.

Emily: It's like, it's like the difference between congress and governors. You get the governors together, they all have the same problem. People want the roads and the schools to work. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Emily: And so those guys really like, you know, I think that there's a lot more common ground than in national politics where what we wanna do is, you know… say stuff. 

Katie: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that that just captures so much about why I love doing the local thing.

Emily: You're a doer. 

Katie: I'm a doer! I am done with all the talking, you know? 

LaFonda: So, Emily, it was amazing to have you on today. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about where they can learn more about you and where they can learn more about your work? 

Emily: Absolutely. So you can find me at parentdata.org, which is where I do a lot of my writing, uh, on Instagram at ProfEmily Oster and I have a podcast called Wellness Actually, where we talk about wellness and what is actually important. 

Katie: I love that so much. Whenever I talk about MAHA, I'm always like, can we just do like a Make America Healthy Again Actually situation? You know? Like actually, actually like we're all on board with wellness. We just need to do it actually.

Emily: We would love to be healthy. Actually.

Katie: Actually. Actually, yes, 

Emily: Actually. 

Katie: Well, it has actually been great to have you on. Thank you so much for joining us. 

Emily: Thank you so much.