Taking Gwyneth Paltrow to task

An Edmonton author is set to return to this city to début his new book debunking the myths of fad diets and health regimens. Tim Caulfield appears to be a soldier in the cause of science and truth, despite what popular self-ascribed health gurus like Gwyneth Paltrow might say about diets, exercises and cleanses.

First, he has one particular cleanse that he recommends in the book, Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture & Science Clash.

“Yeah! None!” he joked. “You don’t need to go on a cleanse. There are no magical diets. Celebrity culture leads us to believe that perhaps there is, that those things exist. I actually have a joke cleanse in there to rid yourself of all the pseudoscience that’s out there.”

He calls it the no-gimmick cleanse and it does involve eating lots of fruits and vegetables.

He might be on to something. Caulfield is evidently a pretty smart guy, having first published The Cure for Everything back in 2012. That book details the only tried and true method for weight loss (“Hint: eat less food,” it explains). Otherwise, he’s the Canada research chair in health law and policy, a professor in the faculty of law and the school of public health at the University of Alberta, and also the research director of the Health Law Institute at the U of A.

All of that makes for a hefty CV, but what does he say about Paltrow and Goop, her website and online newsletter that claims to be “one of the rare places on the web where food, shopping, and mindfulness collide”?

Just because her name is in the title of his book doesn’t mean that he has a particular beef with her but lately she has become synonymous with health consciousness, seems otherwise well educated and has some creative talents. Those aren’t necessarily scientifically backed credentials for her to be a world-renowned expert on health issues, however.

“One of the reasons she’s so fascinating is that she does seem like she ought to be a really sensible person. I’m fascinated why someone like her would have all these beliefs.”

Goop currently promotes “the annual Goop detox” with meal names like Godzilla Native Juice and Clean Granola, whatever that is.

“It’s a really good example of the impact of celebrity culture. Cleanses are a massive industry. This whole detox industry is huge, and there’s not a stitch of evidence to support it. I think, but for celebrities, it wouldn’t be this big industry.”

In his book, he describes the master cleanse – an all-liquid cleanse based on cayenne pepper, lemon juice and maple syrup – as nothing more than a crash diet.

Caulfield has made it his mission to take famous people to task for pushing their ideas on us. It isn’t just about health, he says, but lifestyle, beauty and all of those things of the world that are meant to make us happier, healthier and better. He only goes after Paltrow because she has become a kind of figurehead for this whole phenomenon, the New Age of New Age-iness.

“Gwyneth put herself out there as a health expert. She’s fair game. It’s not like this is incidental to her being an actress. This is core to her brand! Of course, in the book, she’s not the only person I take on. She’s a really good symbol.”

He even referred to a study that showed how people who buy organic food do so partly because they place an importance on being viewed as the sort of person who buys organic food. Celebrity culture plays on that psychology, he continued.

“If you look at Gwyneth’s book It’s All Good, she has all these old-timey pictures in there – she’s in the field… she’s at the farm – it’s this whole kind of gestalt that she’s selling. Not advice but a lifestyle. Celebrity culture has always been really good at that. These beliefs really fit with that. They all synch up to this image that she’s marketing.”

His book is written in a very fun celebrity magazine style with a heaping dose of scientific arguments, solid psychology and perhaps a smidgen of star-struck fandom. He freely admitted that he has always loved celebrity culture and his writing style is a bit reminiscent of entertainment magazines too. He references such austere and respected commentators as Ashton Kutcher and Nicole Kidman before giving other somewhat less notable figures like Fyodr Dostoevsky and Malcolm McLaren their due.

While he hasn’t met Paltrow yet, he did once sneak into her Goop headquarters in London and he has a solid plan to pose as a journalist in an unspecified future media scrum, just so that he can ask her but one question.

And what question is that? “‘Do you really believe the things that you say?’ You know what the answer is going to be, if she answers you at all. I make in my acknowledgements that I’d still like to sit down and have a green tea with her.”

Elsewhere in Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything, he dives headfirst into the celebrity tips, trying their miracle routines while reading People magazine. Come to think of it, this sounds a bit like Supersize Me but with perhaps the opposite intent.

The book is going to be brand new for his presentation, making the event its official launch. It’s only getting released into bookstores next Tuesday, two days before he arrives in this city. He was last here a few years ago when he was touring his first book and found St. Albert audiences to be very supportive of his message.