Is working from home unhealthy?
Working from home has its perks: Better coffee, easy commute, no fluorescent lighting. But, as any home office worker can tell you, there are also downsides: No more office social hours, no more ergonomic chairs, and no more quiet train rides to catch up on your podcasts. In this episode of the Better Off podcast, we’ll ask: Is working from home good or bad for our health?
Subscribe to get a new episode every other week.
SUBSCRIBE VIA APPLE PODCASTSSUBSCRIBE VIA GOOGLE PODCASTSSUBSCRIBE VIA SPOTIFY
Season 2: Home
What makes a healthy home?
In 2022, that question feels more important than ever. What are the right foods to eat? The least-toxic shampoos and sunscreens? The best way to prevent loneliness while working from home? On Season 2 of the Better Off podcast, we’ll look at the research behind some of those big questions. We’ll also ask what happens to our health when “home” is a tent encampment, or a 6×9 solitary jail cell.
Through six new episodes, host Anna Fisher-Pinkert will talk to leading public health experts about the questions she’s had on her mind as a health communicator, a mom, and a person with more than a little skepticism about the things our culture tells us are “healthy.”
Episodes
Better Off Podcast: Is working from home unhealthy?
Working from home has its perks: Better coffee, easy commute, no fluorescent lighting. But, as any home office worker can tell you, there are also downsides: No more office social hours, no more ergonomic chairs, and no more…
Better Off Podcast: How can we protect the health of incarcerated people?
As COVID-19 swept through American prisons and jails in 2020, wardens scrambled to keep prisoners and corrections officers from getting sick. One strategy was to increase solitary confinement. Health experts warn that solitary confinement increases the risk of…
Better Off Podcast: Can we end chronic homelessness?
It’s estimated that half a million Americans are experiencing homelessness. Even a brief period of housing insecurity can make existing health issues worse, and bring up new physical and mental traumas. Doctors and nurses who help patients navigate…
Better Off Podcast: What makes a meal healthy?
What does a plate of healthy food look like? Everyone has an opinion – from doctors to dieticians to wellness experts. But advice on what to eat often ignores a big factor in how and why we make…
Better Off Podcast: Is clean beauty for real?
It seems like every brand of makeup, fragrance, and hair care wants consumers to believe that their products are safe, natural, and clean. Is this all just greenwashing? The beauty industry is remarkably unregulated – and women, particularly…
Better Off Podcast: Is cooking with natural gas unhealthy?
40 million American homes cook their meals with natural gas. But most people don’t think of the little blue flame on their gas range as the end of a very long natural gas pipeline. New research shows that…
Better Off: Home
What makes a healthy home? In 2022, that question feels more important than ever. What are the right foods to eat? The least-toxic shampoos and sunscreens? The best way to prevent loneliness while working from home? On Season…
Season 1
We're better off when we unstick the stereotypes around eating disorders
Eating disorders affect a population the size of the state of Texas, cost the economy tens of billions of dollars, and kill 10,000 Americans per year. If eating disorders are so common, expensive, and deadly, why don't we…
We’re better off when we age with resilience
During the earliest days of the pandemic, younger people were told to protect the older adults in their lives from COVID-19 by isolating at home. Concerns about the virus and pandemic restrictions have taken a toll on everyone's…
We're better off with Juneteenth
In a special bonus episode, recorded a day before Juneteenth was made a federal holiday, we listen in on a conversation between Opal Lee, an activist and teacher often called the "grandmother of Juneteenth," and Harvard University professors…