Oh Gwenyth, how I idolized you. Given her model physique and youthful appearance approaching 50 years old, why shouldn’t Gwenyth Paltrow be trusted as an authority on health? With 1.3 million followers on Instagram and 35 million podcast listeners, her wellness and lifestyle brand is making quite an impact. Her Netflix series The Goop Lab, covers revelatory episodes on subjects like psychedelic mushrooms, cold therapy, and mediumship that capture the most trendy and controversial trends of the times. Some have given it praise for centering women’s issues, but are they issues that empower all women, or only the elite?
Celebrity Self-Care
Expert information given by her wellness and lifestyle brands requires careful interpretation. For example, a Harvard genetics professor hosted on her podcast advised how to optimize and support our bodies as we age claiming that ‘Only 20% of our longevity and health in old age is genetically determined. The rest is up to us’. While Gwenyth’s approach to ‘the rest’ includes intermittent fasting, an hour of cardio plus an hour of weights six days a week, and vaginal steaming, health in its entirety is a balance between mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. Intermittent fasting can lead to an increase in cortisol, the stress hormone, and excessive exercising can actually weaken the immune system. Sounds a bit counterintuitive, no?
Lifestyle & Wellness Privileges
Diet and exercise only account for 15% of a person’s health outcomes. Considering the social determinants of health encompass things like genetics, pollution exposure, access to clean food and water, poverty, job and housing insecurity, education, access to healthcare, healthy relationships, and coping skills, it’s thanks to holding many privileges that someone can prioritize dietary restrictions and 12 hours a week of exercise.
Practical Wellness & Lifestyle Routines
For those of us who don’t have $150 million to spend on wellness and lifestyle trends, there are more practical, less extreme ways to optimize our health. For a start, stop comparing yourself to celebrities! You don’t need to buy $55 detox nutrient shots if you have a functioning liver. Unless you want a disordered relationship with food, you don’t need to create hierarchies of food by labeling them ‘clean’ or ‘whole’. You shouldn’t spend 2 hours a day doing intense exercise unless you want exercise bulimia.
Brain Fog & Fatigue
While Gwenyth appears to be the picture of health, there’s just no way to know by looking at her. Again, we don’t know what kind of mental and emotional pressure she’s putting on herself, or what genetic factors she could be predisposed to. Apparently, she is currently suffering from fatigue and brain fog which she advocates treating with a keto and plant-based diet, no sugar or alcohol, fasting until 11:00 every day, and taking infrared saunas. Speaking as someone who’s recovered from disordered eating, fatigue, and brain fog, I can’t help but wonder, if she released the food rules and ate frequently and enough, could she have more energy and think more clearly? Just playing devil’s advocate.
A Different Perspective
To quote Ashlee Bennet, The Body Image Therapist, ‘Being with your body involves being in attuned relationship with it, knowing that it will change grow, evolve, decay, and that’s exactly what bodies do’. What if instead of spending our existence obsessing about preserving our bodies, we experienced life in a peaceful relationship with them? Instead of adopting exhaustive self-care routines, we allowed ourselves to be led by our intuition? Maybe we need to reevaluate our culture’s fear of aging and death instead? That’s for another post. For now, take celebrities’ wellness and lifestyle advice with a grain of salt – but not too much or you’ll end up with high blood pressure! Just kidding.
If you could use some support in finding your intuition and a peaceful relationship with your body, grab a copy of my free guide to wellness culture.
