Grace was an outgoing, popular, and athletic teenager when the pandemic first began.  But when the country went on lockdown,  she became obsessed with exercise and lost an alarming amount of weight. And Grace isn't alone. Across the country, the number of young people diagnosed with eating disorders has exploded.  The problem is so bad,  doctors told Grace's mother, "There are so many kids suffering right now, we don't have enough beds."  Experts blame a perfect storm of anxiety, isolation, and social media.  What's worse?  Social media giants like Instagram ..read more

If you don't think a pair of socks can change the world... you haven't met Laura Schmidt.   Laura is the 'Chief Positive Person' of 'Notes To Self Socks' and she believes that WORDS MATTER!!!  One MILLION pairs of positive socks later, she sits down with the 'RadioDana Diaries' to explain how it all came about.  YES, famous people wear her socks.  But so do a TON of my friends because I started giving them out as gifts several years ago.  YOU are SMART, YOU are CONFIDENT and YOU are BRAVE!!!  Just ask Laura Schmidt!!!!  She is my friend, and she is Diary Entr ..read more

My guest this week uncovered an extremely dark past in our collective history regarding women, sex, and mass imprisonment.  Between the first and second World Wars, thousands of women were rounded up, tested, and forcibly incarcerated over suspicion that they'd contracted a sexually transmitted disease.  Some of the women who were imprisoned were married.  None of them had done anything wrong.  In fact, the youngest prisoners?  Were children.   Dr. Nicole Perry, with the University of Kansas,  spent ten years researching this deeply disturbing chapter in ..read more

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the deadliest accidental structural collapse in the history of the United States.  Career engineer and lecturer Robynn Andracsek joins us this week to talk about what happened, WHY it happened, and why it is critically important to get young girls excited about engineering beginning in grade school!!!  She is a fierce advocate and ROCK STAR of SCIENCE.  And she is diary entry Number 11 ..read more

The RadioDana Diaries is BACK!  This week, we welcome 54 year old Anne Fraser.  Four years ago, after losing both of her parents to Alzheimer's Disease, Anne started noticing subtle changes in her memory and cognition levels.  She soon learned that she is one of a small percentage of Americans battling Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease, or Pre-Alzheimer's Disease.  When you meet Anne?  You would never know it.  She says some small but incredibly important lifestyle changes have made it possible for her to stay ON her GAME!  Anne is my friend.  And she is D ..read more

The first time you meet Kristen Christian you will want to hug her and be her best friend.  In that order.  I have known Kristen for a little over a year through her AMAZING organization business, "Bee Organized," in Kansas City.  She's the kind of woman you just fall in love with.  She lights up a ROOM.  I only recently found out that this fierce, funny, energetic mother of four?  Is also a breast cancer survivor.  I was thrilled that she agreed to sit down with me during 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month' to share her story with ALL of you- because I truly bel ..read more

You've probably heard about the extremely popular antibiotic known as "Bactrim," which is used to treat all kinds of ailments from acne to urinary tract infections.  But two local physicians recently figured out - that for some teenagers - the common prescription can lead to devastating reactions, including death.  I welcome Dr. Jenna Miller and Dr. Jennifer Goldman to The RadioDana Diaries.  Their story is Diary Entry Number Eight.   ..read more

When I first started asking around about the strong and amazing women that I NEEDED to know in my life? More people than I can count, replied, "Deliece Hofen." Deliece is a warrior and a cancer survivor. And so is her little boy. In one TINY window of time, cancer knocked on her family's door not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. In this week's "RadioDana Diaries," you will hear about this mom's fierce, tandem fight to save her son Braden's life and her own. You will also learn a stunning truth: an adult's road map to remission looks nothing like a child's when they're both facing a similar di ..read more

As I was sitting down to write this, I was thinking how much I wish that I knew my friend, Mindy Corporon, for a reason OTHER than the one that brought me to Mindy Corporon. Like me, Mindy is a boy mom. She is a public speaker and a wife. She has kind eyes and a soft and beautiful smile. She's the kind of woman you WANT to be friends with the second you meet her. I hadn't yet met Mindy back on April 13, 2014, when her world came crashing around her. That day, she pulled into the parking lot of the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas.  She got out of her car and found her fath ..read more

In this week's "RadioDana Diaries," I'm asking you to think about all of the different ways people die in our community and the questions we ALL have when a young person, in particular, is taken from us. The nightly news is filled with car accidents and house fires and homicides and drug overdoses. And all of these deaths, generally, have at least one thing in common: family members almost always know what happened.  Think about it. In most cases, people know how and when and where and WHY their loved ones died. But when a police officer in the state of Kansas is cleared in the shooting d ..read more