36 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • DECEMBER 2020
PRESS HEALTH
JOAN LUNDEN: A NEW
BY SHERYL NANCE-NASH
Joan Lunden always wanted to be a
doctor, like her father. She also thought
about teaching for a time. When she
became an award-winning journalist
and bestselling author, she fulfilled her
earlier dreams, through her work as
a motivational speaker and a women's
health and wellness advocate.
Long before Lunden was a household
name, she started humbly as a trainee
for KCRA-TV's news department in
1973. Within two years she was a weather
person, reporter, and anchor for the
station. Next stop, New York City, for a
job at WABC-TV and then Good Morning
America. Her nearly two decades
as a television cohost are legendary.
She reported from 26 countries, covered
five presidents, several Olympic
Games, and told us how to care for our
homes, families, and health. Life
after GMA has included, among
other positions, working as
a special correspondent
on the TODAY Show,
host of the U.S.
Centers for Disease
Control and
CBS television
station’s series
Your Health, and
starting in January,
she’ll be at
the helm of PBS’
Second Opinion.
She created a
women’s summer
getaway camp in
Maine, designed
a line of home
goods, and wrote
12 books.
She’ll tell you
quickly where
her heart is.
Health is her passion. She knows firsthand
about health challenges. In 2014,
Lunden was diagnosed with triple-negative
breast cancer, which required chemotherapy,
surgery, and radiation. She
turned her experience into a teachable
moment. She shared her cancer battle
in her memoir Had I Known:
A Memoir of Survival. She
advocates for cancer
patients on Capitol Hill
and elsewhere and engages
with the cancer
community through social
media and her website, joanlunden.
com.
At 70, the wife and mother of seven,
including two sets of teenage twins, is
hardly slowing down. Earlier this year,
she published her latest book, Why Did
I Come Into This Room? A Candid Conversation
About Aging. Her take on the
female aging process is as informative
as it is entertaining. She keeps it real,
talking about the guts and glory of
growing older.
Long Island Press spoke with Lunden,
who will host Schneps Media’s virtual
Health & Fiscal Wellness Expo on Dec.
3, to chat about her career, family, women’s
health, aging and more.
What was it like in the beginning of
your career in such a competitive
industry? I was a young woman on
local television news in New York when
I got a call from my agent saying that
I had gotten an offer to cohost Good
Morning America. Twenty minutes
later I got a call from my gynecologist
telling me that I was pregnant with my
first child. This would be new territory.
I was one of the first anchors to appear
pregnant on television. The network
was great. When I told them that I was
breastfeeding my daughter Jamie and
that she needed to be with me, I got a
dressing room for her next
to mine. It had a crib, and
a baby nurse would
look after her. She
was even with
me when she
was 1 year
o l d ,
“When I make the drive between my
home and the office, I notice the sun
coming through the trees. In my 30s I was
too busy to see the sun.”
Joan Lunden recently published Why Did I Come Into This Room? A Candid Conversation About Aging.
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