May 20, 2026 · 36 min · 16 segments
Why Anxiety, Meltdowns, Sleep Problems, and Emotional Dysregulation May Have More to Do With Modern Childhood Than We Think Children today are more anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, and emotionally…
John La PumaGuestTanya JohnsonHost
I mean, they want tools to stabilize the developing nervous system, and you and I can give them to them.
The other thing as I just read your bio was how does somebody do all of this in one lifetime, a chef, a doctor, and a bestselling author? [laughs]
I- I've been told to add careers rather than change them, so I try to follow my mentors in that way.
And for me, it's all one, um, continuum about medicine, how to bring things that seem to be outside of medicine into the mainstream with sufficient evidence base and patient stories and good science so that they are more adopted more widely.
And I think play therapy, something that you do, is exactly a, a wonderful example of that.
It might be just thought of as play and leisurely, but in fact, it has direct therapeutic h- uh, application and has to be done in a particular way in order to achieve the results that you want.
So I think about using food as medicine and nature as medicine, uh, in exactly the same way.
Dr. LiPuma, from my own experience both growing up in South Africa and now living in North America, to be honest with you, this doesn't feel like the way medicine is often practiced at all.
That was true 25 years ago when we started Culinary Medicine, which as you know-Blends the art of cooking with the science of medicine to create restaurant-quality meals that help to prevent and treat disease.
When I worked in a restaurant professionally for four years, mm, chopping onions, making soups and sauces, my colleague thought I was nuts, my medical colleagues.
But I had to do it in order to become a really good cook, and then find a way to bring that into medicine.
And now culinary medicine is taught in 80% of American medical schools, and we taught the first course, Michael Roizen and I, in 2003.
That is, we're going to be able to use specific pharmacological and neuroendocrine and circadian data to show people that using light, air, and movement is not just woo, but actually a scientific tool that we can use, and an underlying biological mismatch that we have missed in chronic disease and the development of children especially.
I mean, they want tools to stabilize the developing nervous system, and you and I can give them to them.
The other thing as I just read your bio was how does somebody do all of this in one lifetime, a chef, a doctor, and a bestselling author? [laughs]
I- I've been told to add careers rather than change them, so I try to follow my mentors in that way.
And for me, it's all one, um, continuum about medicine, how to bring things that seem to be outside of medicine into the mainstream with sufficient evidence base and patient stories and good science so that they are more adopted more widely.
And I think play therapy, something that you do, is exactly a, a wonderful example of that.
It might be just thought of as play and leisurely, but in fact, it has direct therapeutic h- uh, application and has to be done in a particular way in order to achieve the results that you want.
So I think about using food as medicine and nature as medicine, uh, in exactly the same way.
Dr. LiPuma, from my own experience both growing up in South Africa and now living in North America, to be honest with you, this doesn't feel like the way medicine is often practiced at all.
That was true 25 years ago when we started Culinary Medicine, which as you know-Blends the art of cooking with the science of medicine to create restaurant-quality meals that help to prevent and treat disease.
When I worked in a restaurant professionally for four years, mm, chopping onions, making soups and sauces, my colleague thought I was nuts, my medical colleagues.
But I had to do it in order to become a really good cook, and then find a way to bring that into medicine.
And now culinary medicine is taught in 80% of American medical schools, and we taught the first course, Michael Roizen and I, in 2003.
That is, we're going to be able to use specific pharmacological and neuroendocrine and circadian data to show people that using light, air, and movement is not just woo, but actually a scientific tool that we can use, and an underlying biological mismatch that we have missed in chronic disease and the development of children especially.
Every episode on Radar is fully transcribed, speaker-labeled, and rich with metadata. Here is a taste of this one. Try Radar for free to see the rest.
3 of 5
Screens, Sleep, and Brain Trash
Why bedtime screens poison kids' clean brains
Kids' Horizon Deficiency Epidemic
Stats reveal hidden costs of indoor childhood
Sunlight vs. Prozac
One sunshine hour rivals a Prozac prescription
+2 more clips · 6 min 12 sec of audio in all
7 of 23
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
All 5 clips — the highlight moments, each cut as its own audio, with a title and a speaker
All 16 segments — the transcript broken into labeled sections, every ad read marked
All 23 topics — jump to every other episode discussing the same subject
Every related episode — other shows Radar links to this one
No account is needed to search Radar.
