Zara Hanawalt
Stop whispering, start talking: sharp, sassy takes on life in a female body.
Paige DeSorbo is Here to Normalize Frequent UTIs
I feel like I should knock on wood before sharing this, but here we go: I’ve never had a urinary tract infection (at least…I don’t think I have?). But when I recently shared this with a few friends, they were shocked. As someone who is not personally prone to UTIs, I truly had no idea how common they are.
And that’s in part because (all together now!) we’ve been so discouraged as women from talking about the real stuff that’s happening in our bodies. I imagine many women have felt like they need to hide their UTI-related discomfort, to essentially suffer in silence, for fear of sharing “too much information”. But, you know what I say: When it comes to intel about our bodies, there is no such thing as “too much”.
That’s why I love that Paige DeSorbo is speaking out about her own experiences with chronic UTIs — stigma be damned.
During an appearance on the Broad Ideas podcast, the reality star shared that she typically gets an infection every four-ish months.
“ I’ll have girls that DM me that have never had a UTI before in their lives and they’ll be like, ‘Is this just a normal thing that you’re walking around with during the day?’ And I’m like, ‘They are so debilitating,’” DeSorbo said. “In college, I used to be able to go to class, go to do whatever. As I got older, they would truly debilitate [me]. I wouldn’t be able to move off of the toilet literally, I’d have to pee every four seconds.”
She also shared that she’s been taking cranberry and oregano supplements to keep this frequency at bay. While there’s research to back up the effectiveness of cranberry products in this application, as always, your best bet is to go chat with your doctor if you experience frequent UTIs.
Whether DeSorbo’s approach works for you or not, it’s the normalization that matters here. By talking openly about her own experience with a health issue that is, well…not super sexy, she’s helping other women and girls feel less alone.
Ask Clara:
"How do I get a UTI?"
New Research Reveals What GLP-1 Users May Not be Thinking About
Here’s the thing about GLP-1 agonists (aka Ozempic and the like): They’re still new. We’re still learning about them — and by “we” I mean the general public, the people who are on these drugs, and the medical community.
These drugs are arguably one of the biggest breakthroughs we’ve seen in the medical world, and so many people claim GLP-1 use has completely changed their lives. But it’s important to remember that these drugs aren’t a cure-all.
According to new research published in thr International Journal of Obesity, this may be a pitfall of GLP-1 use: Many users may not be receiving enough nutritional guidance while on these medications.
Because GLP-1 drugs are so revolutionary, especially for people with diabetes or obesity, it seems people have fallen into this sort of “magical solution” line of thinking around these drugs. Maybe they even see them as quick fix solutions for weight loss, and view that weight loss as the ultimate metric for measuring health.
Contrary to some narratives out there, you still need to be mindful of what you’re eating, with a particular focus on protein to preserve muscle. The researchers point out that because people on these drugs tend to feel full quickly, experience nausea, and have different food preferences while on these drugs, which may steer them away from eating enough protein.
That, combined with lack of nutritional counseling, can explain why being on a GLP-1 drug can be linked to dietary gaps. Because it’s not just about consuming fewer calories, it’s also about dietary quality. All that to say: Yes, you may get full quickly and lose weight fast on this medication, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to, say, eat nothing but a candy bar all day. Yes, you may be losing weight and feeling satiated, but it’s not going to do you any favors down the line.
The takeaway here? Information matters. And we need to change the narrative around body size being the ultimate indicator of a healthy diet. GLP-1 drugs can be incredible, game-changing medications for people, but it’s important to remember that they just represent one item in a full toolkit of things people can do in the name of better health.
Ask Clara:
"How do GLP-1 drugs work?"
Hot Take: We Should Stop Asking People If They’re Done Having Kids
“So are you done having kids?” is pretty much a standard conversational question — like, to the point that it often comes up the first time you meet someone. It’s a question we shouldn’t be asking so casually, at least in my opinion.
Is it a categorically bad question? No, but it’s not one we should be asking people we barely know. And here’s my hot take: We shouldn’t be asking it of people we are close to either — especially not if we know they’ve ever experienced any type of fertility struggle or pregnancy complication.
For people who have experienced infertility, this is such a complicated question...and one that's really tough to answer.
As someone who had twins after fertility challenges, a big part of me does want a third child, but I don’t think the desire is big enough for me to undergo testing, treatments, face the possibility of another miscarriage, and endure another high-risk, complicated pregnancy. And so when people ask me about having another child (or worse, tell me I should have another), even when they’re close friends or family members, it stings.
And it just feels plain awkward. I don’t have as simple a relationship to that question as some people do. I don’t have that luxury.
Because for me, and for so many people out there for so many reasons, it’s not as simple as deciding whether or not you want another baby. There are so many health considerations and (especially in this economy!) financial considerations.
It’s not just about actually conceiving and birthing a baby either. A friend recently told me she couldn’t handle the thought of having a third baby because she couldn’t fathom the possibility of having a child who would never meet her dad, who passed away after her second child’s birth.
Once you factor in one of those things, you realize...this isn't a simple question for so many people.
And the truth is, it’s complicated to explain all that to someone who has never walked through any of the issues that can affect your relationship to the question of whether you’ll have another baby. So here’s a thought: Let’s file this question under “things we’re leaving in 2025”.
Ask Clara:
"How do I decide if I want another child?"
'Tell Me Lies' Gave a Whole New Meaning to the Term ‘Unhealthy Relationship”
Have you ever been in a truly toxic relationship? I haven’t, but I’ve certainly seen friends and loved ones caught in these cycles…and I’ve seen how deeply they can affect people, especially women. Not just mentally and emotionally, but physically as well.
I’ve seen women I love lose alarming amounts of weight due to the stress of it all. I’ve seen them experience panic attacks or mental health issues. They’ve lost hair and gained digestive issues. Some turn to substances and change their eating habits dramatically or struggle to get out of bed each day.
When you’ve seen a toxic relationship up close, you see how accurate the term “toxic” truly is, and how unhealthy — in every way — these relationships can be. And Tell Me Lies, which just aired its series finale after three wild, twisted, toxic seasons, did justice to that experience.
If you haven’ t watched Tell Me Lies, keep reading. I promise I'll avoid spoiling things here, but I will encourage you to read the book and watch all three seasons of the show. It’s pure millennial gold, complete with a perfect soundtrack and some truly quality acting.
But most of all, it gives us what many call the first truly accurate depiction of a toxic relationship in pop culture. It doesn’t just get into how the wrong relationship can devastate you emotionally; it also gives us a glimpse at how it can affect your health.
We’ve grown up with so many romanticized takes on toxic men. This show is the antidote to all of them. It’s not a love story; it’s a cautionary tale. It shows us how falling in love with the wrong person can strip you of your dignity, your goals, your friendships…even your physical and mental health. It can completely undo you.
This brilliant little show feeds us the real, raw, nasty truth about toxic relationships and what they can truly do to a person. And it's about time.
Rihanna is Being Shamed for her Post-Baby Body and Literally WTF?
Rihanna is a music icon, a beauty mogul, a mom of three and a self-made billionaire…but she’s also a woman, which means no matter what she does or accomplishes, the world seems to think the most interesting thing about her is her body. And the world also seems to think that body is a thing they’re allowed to comment on publicly.
An account recently shared a photo of the singer at the airport carrying her son. It’s bad enough that someone snapped a photo of a mom in the wild just trying to get from point A to point B with her child in her arms. But what came next is just….blood boiling, at least to me.
“I can see why people leave their partners after birth,” a commenter wrote. Seriously?!?! The woman had a baby five months ago, but that’s not even the point here. The point is that speaking about a woman — any woman — this way is just beyond ugly.
Seriously, this is exhausting. Did we all just collectively forget that having a child is meant to change a woman’s body? Did we forget that even in the absence of pregnancy and childbirth, bodies change over time? Did we forget that people are going to look different at an airport as opposed to all done up and airbrushed in red carpet photos? Did we forget that aging is a normal thing?
We have always held women to impossible standards, and people have always felt entitled to comment on women’s bodies and looks. But with the rise of Botox, fillers, plastic surgery, filtering photos, and the like, I feel we’ve created an even more unrealistic set of beauty and physical standards…and these comments are proof.
One commenter said it best: “She looks like a mom who is having a great time with her son. A father should see this as thr [sic] ultimate picture of beauty”.
Ask Clara:
"What is bounce back culture?"
If You Felt Let Down on Valentine's Day, It's Not Your Fault
I’m in a Facebook group full of smart, kind, successful women. And every year, after a holiday like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day — a day meant to center women — the discourse is the same.
Someone will get vulnerable and post something about how disappointed she was on the holiday. She will express that her partner failed to get her flowers or a gift, or even acknowledge the day.
Inevitably, someone will reply with something along the lines of: “That sucks, but you really should have communicated your wants to him. He can’t read your mind.”
But I’m here to tell you: If you were let down on Valentine’s Day, it’s not your fault.
Women are expected to anticipate everyone’s needs — essentially, to read everybody’s minds. But when they dare to have expectations from someone else, even if those expectations are as simple as “I would like to receive flowers and a nice card on Valentine’s Day,” they’re asked to do all the emotional heavy lifting. If they don't (or, quite honestly, even if they do) they're told they are the problem.
You shouldn’t have to communicate to someone that you want them to be thoughtful. And while we’ve been fed narratives that having expectations around “Hallmark holidays” is “cringe” or “immature”, I say screw that! It’s okay to want to be showered with love every single day, and a little extra on special holidays.
The cool girl trope exists to keep women’s expectations low so they feel guilt or even shame for wanting to be cared for and considered. It keeps women performing all the emotional labor in their own lives, even when they are meant to be on the receiving end.
Obviously, communication is important. But at some point, we’ve got to just stop blaming women for every little thing and demanding they be the architects of their own special moments. I’m here to tell you that if you were let down on Valentine’s Day this year, it almost certainly wasn’t your fault. It’s not cringe or uncool or immature to want to be celebrated, it’s human.
Ask Clara:
"What is emotional labor?"
Why Does James Van Der Beek's Death Hit So Close to Home for His Fans?
When I first heard of James Van Der Beek’s passing, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Obviously, I didn’t know the actor. I wasn’t even a big fan of his, though I do find the way he spoke about being a husband and father quite beautiful. For a few minutes, I couldn’t wonder why I — and so many of the gen X-ers and millennials I follow online — were so affected by this news. Is it just textbook parasocial behavior…or something more?
A few hours after the news broke, I saw a post that immediately clarified those feelings. “Losing James Van Der Beek is really like losing a classmate for Millennials,” @philantrophygal posted on Threads. The post resonated with many, and for me, it makes perfect sense.
Celebrity deaths hit hard, but now that we’ve started losing more and more of the stars we grew up watching — Shannen Doherty, Luke Perry, Dustin Diamond, Aaron Carter, Michelle Trachtenberg, to name a few — it doesn’t just feel sad to see a star succumb to an untimely death. It reminds us of our own mortality.
It puts into perspective just how fast life moves, and it makes us acutely aware that we are transitioning into a new phase of our own lives.
I’m ten-plus years younger than Van Der Beek, but his illness and death are a sobering reminder. Like my fellow Gen X-ers and Millennials, I am aging into the point in my own life when I have to really take control of my health. Colonscopies, breast cancer screenings, and other routine checks — these are things I really need to stay on top of at this point in life, and Van Der Beek’s experience with colorectal cancer is a reminder that we are not “too young” to be thinking about these things, especially as we see cancer cases rise among young people. And that’s why this celebrity loss feels so heavy…for people around Van Der Beek’s age, it’s not just the loss of a star. It’s also the loss of a peer.
What the Breastfeeding 'Secret to Marriage Equality' Headline Misses
Earlier this month, the New York Times opinion section ran a headline that made many parents — myself included — balk. "The Secret to Marriage Equality is Baby Formula," the headline reads.
Listen, there is a tiny kernel of something to this. As a mom who exclusively breastfed twins, I can absolutely attest to the fact that for a baby's first year, a breastfeeding parent is always on call, while formula-feeding is a job either parent (or an outside caregiver) can take on. But there are certainly ways to redistribute the load, even if it's never exactly equal.
But parenting aside, here's the issue I've always found with conversations like this one: They completely minimize the role breastfeeding plays in maternal health.
Most of the time, when people talk about the benefits of breastfeeding, they're focused on the benefits they provide the baby. But what we need to remember is that breastfeeding also benefits moms in many ways. According to the CDC, breastfeeding can reduce the mother's risk of breast and ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. There's also evidence to suggest mental health benefits for mothers who breastfeed.
Am I saying that breastfeeding is the way to circumvent all these issues, or is even the superior feeding choice for new mothers? No, not at all. In a country that requires women to return to work bleeding and leaking immediately after giving birth, the notion that we "should" breastfeed is especially flawed. Even with paid leave, it doesn't work out for everyone.
But what's interesting is how minimized the maternal benefit piece of the breastfeeding conversation has been, and how quickly we decide that this thing — a thing that can help babies and their mothers — is the piece we can set aside. Which is…actually just completely typical of the way we treat all women’s health issues.
It's much easier to tell women they need to make the change rather than demand better systemic support. So no, "just turn to formula" is not advice that can save mothers from burnout. Systemic support and an acknowledgement of what is actually good for women and mothers is.
Ask Clara:
"How does breastfeeding benefit mothers?"
Finally Some Good News: Coffee and Tea May Reduce Your Dementia Risk
Sometimes it feels like everything I enjoy is deemed "bad for you". But finally, a piece of news I can get behind: That "I probably should stop but I really could use a buzz" second (or third or fourth) coffee of the day may actually offer some protective benefits.
A new study published in JAMA details observation of 131821 people from two cohorts. The data was collected between 1980 and 2023, and in those years, 11,033 dementia cases were observed.
According to the findings, coffee drinkers in middle age had an 18 percent lower likelihood of developing dementia later in life, while tea drinkers reduced their risk by 14 percent. The key here is the caffeine: The effect didn't hold up among people who drink decaffeinated teas and coffee.
As always, moderation is necessary. The study calls out two to three cups of coffee a day or one to two cups of tea a day as the protective sweet spot. For me at least, that second or third cup is where I find myself asking if it’s going to be too much caffeine in one day even if I really feel like I could use a bit more energy. This study might make me rethink that…
It’s important to remember that one study doesn’t give us absolute truths. While this data gives us a reason to believe caffeine may have cognitive health benefits — and this isn’t the first time we’ve found a reason to believe coffee can bring benefits to the table — it doesn’t necessarily tell us that a few cups of coffee a day will prevent dementia.
But I could really use some good news right now, and I’m going to take this as a sign that I should pour myself another cup. Join me?
Ask Clara:
"How does caffeine affect me?"
Do Short Women Have Harder Pregnancies? Here's the Truth
I'm just a smidge over five feet tall, so when I got pregnant with twins, everyone's immediate reaction was the same. "You're so tiny," they'd say. How are you going to carry two babies?".
But my doctor assured me my height wouldn't affect things. "I see petite women carry perfectly healthy pregnancies all the time, even with multiples" she explained. As for the discomfort of carrying twins on a small frame? She didn't "have any evidence" that carrying eleven-ish pounds of baby would be more challenging due to my size.
And I don't have any evidence of this either. All I know is that for me, carrying two babies to 36 weeks was not easy. At all. But then, I imagine it's not easy for any mother of any size.
I recently thought of this when I came across a video of Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo talking about this very issue.
Despite my doctor's assurances, there is data to support the idea that pregnancy can be different for petite ladies. In 1989, research found a link to suggest short women are more likely to have smaller infants and increased odds of having C-sections. In 2015, more evidence to suggest that shorter women tend to have shorter pregnancies emerged. That’s not to say you will give birth prematurely if you’re small; there are many factors that affect how your pregnancy will go. But of course, if you have any questions or concerns, a chat with your provider is in order.
Here's the thing, though: While we know a bit about how being short can affect your pregnancy outcomes, people seem less interested in learning how pregnancy feels for shorter women. Which is not at all surprising, because our world just really doesn't care about women's comfort, especially in the context of pregnancy.
Ask Clara:
"Is pregnancy harder for short women?"