DEEP DIVE: Donna Jackson Nakazawa on Helping Our Daughters Thrive

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood

Kids & Family, Comedy, Parenting

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In honor of Women's History Month, this "Deep Dive" series highlights some of our past interview episodes about raising daughters. Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science journalist whose work explores the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and emotion. In, ⁠GIRLS ON THE BRINK: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media⁠, she unpacks the causes of the stress on American girls and its detrimental effects on their mental health. In this interview, we discuss: Why girls tend to be more depressed and anxious than boys How we've stolen girls' "safe in-between years" "Antidote" strategies for helping girls through adolescence Here's where you can find Donna: ⁠https://donnajacksonnakazawa.com⁠ @donnajacksonnakazawaauthor on Facebook ⁠Buy Donna's book!⁠ Sign up for the What Fresh Hell newsletter! Once a month you’ll get our favorite recent episodes, plus links to other things to read and watch and listen to, and upcoming special events: ⁠https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/newsletter/ What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables. We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ What Fresh Hell podcast, mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, girls mental health, teen girl anxiety, teen girl depression, parenting daughters, social media and girls, adolescent brain development, why are girls more anxious than boys, helping girls through adolescence, girls and depression statistics, middle school girls mental health, neuroscience of anxiety, immunology and mental health, stress in teenage girls, protecting girls mental health, parenting in the age of social media, girls and self esteem, safe in-between years, raising resilient daughters, girls emotional development, mental health strategies for teens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell Laughing in the Face of Motherhood.
0:06.8	This is Margaret.
0:07.7	And this is Amy.
0:08.6	And today we're talking to Donna Jackson Nakazawa.
0:12.1	She is the author of four books that explore the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and emotion, including the Angel and the Assassin,
0:19.9	named one of the best books of 2020 by Wired
0:22.2	Magazine, and Childhood Disrupted, How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can
0:28.1	Healing.
0:28.9	Jackson Akazawa is also the creator and founder of Your Healing Narrative, Right to Heal, With Neural
0:34.7	Renerating.
0:35.9	She lives with her family in Maryland, and her new book is Girls on the Brink, Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an era of increased anxiety, depression, and social media. Welcome, Donna. Thanks for having me, guys. Pleasure to be here. Oh, we both need this one. We have, I have a 10-year-old girl, and Amy has 14-year-old. And so we are on the brink of them being on the brink. Yeah, they're on the brink. You're on the brink. And I've been there. We're on the brink. Yes, we're all on the brink. And we have a banana peel. Yes. So let's start with the problem. We like to talk about what are we seeing when we look at the state of mental health and girls today?
1:13.5	Well, we're seeing that rates of depression and anxiety, which have already been higher in girls traditionally than in boys once girls hit puberty, are skyrocketing.
1:24.3	And that gap is continuing to widen between girls mental health and boys mental
1:29.4	health. So if we just look at a few of the big take statistics, a third of girls now by age 17
1:37.8	report a major depressive period. I don't mean just, you know, a bad breakup or worrying about finals.
1:46.1	I mean a period of weeks where they didn't want to get out of bed or they lost interest
1:50.7	in their activities.
1:52.4	We know that one in four girls suffers from depression compared to one in ten boys.
1:58.6	And more recently, this past year, the CDC reported that the rate of girls
2:05.2	with suicidal attempts or ideation rose 51% compared to 4% in boys. So, you know, as a science
2:14.3	journalist and investigative reporter, you have to step back and say,
2:18.5	what's going on here? And so I set out for two years to ask, I think, the greatest minds of our time
	...

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