Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything? isn't quite the book I expected it to be, or at least not entirely. In the first section, author (and professor/health science expert/celebrity culture aficionado) Timothy Caulfield personally puts celebrity-endorsed health and beauty regimes to the test (and this was, for some reason, what I thought the whole book would focus on). In the second section, Caulfield uses science (statistics, peer-reviewed journal articles, extensive personal interviews with celebrities) to demonstrate how astronomically unlikely it is that even an extraordinarily talented person will become a celebrity (and that includes actors, singers, dancers, and athletes). In the third section, Caulfield asks the question that we can all answer but never acknowledge: what's so great about being a celebrity anyway? Caulfield immerses himself in every area (from attempting to audition for American Idol to spending a month on Gwyneth Paltrow's favourite cleansing regime), appeals to recognised authorities to help him analyse his results, and writes in an accessible and self-effacing style (but I could have done without the frequent parenthetical exclamations!).
In a nice bit of synchronicity, I picked up this book the same day that Gwyneth Paltrow was publicly ridiculed for endorsing vagina steaming, and while I cracked the book with more than a little schadenfreude, it's not actually a takedown of Ms. Paltrow. Indeed, in the Acknowledgements, Caulfield states:
I thought about structuring the entire book around Gwyneth's antics. But two things changed my mind. First, poor Gwyneth got a lot of flak in 2013 and 2014. She didn't need more hurled in her direction, even if the hurler was an obscure Canadian academic. Second, getting near Gwyneth isn't easy. I tried. Often.How Canadian is that, eh? Caulfield was too nice to pile on with the Gwyneth-haters (Conscious Uncoupling, anyone?) and wouldn't take her down too many pegs if Gwyneth declined to respond (but one does note that Gwyneth's name remains in the title, so Caulfield isn't opposed to using her to move a few books). In answer to the titular question -- is Gwyneth Paltrow wrong about everything? -- it would seem the answer is: yes. After spending a month on the Clean Cleanse, Caulfield did lose nine pounds (which he quickly regained afterward) but, using medical experts to evaluate his gut contents, there were no "detoxing" or "cleansing" effects (but negative -- anecdotal -- effects on his mood and stress levels). As Paltrow is apparently a smoker (and says that indulging now and then will "keep you vibrant") and advocates tanning ("I don't think anything that is natural can be bad for you") despite the alarming rise in skin cancer rates, her advice doesn't even appear to be internally consistent. Which brings Caulfield to his central point: why do we assume celebrities to be authorities on anything? After using science to explain the illusion of celebrity authority, and after using science to debunk the usefulness of everything from vitamin supplements to gemstone facials, Caulfield gives the following very unsexy advice:
1. Don't smoke.The next two sections of the book, as I said, take a closer look at celebrity culture (why everyone wants to be a star, why nearly no one will become one, and why fame and fortune don't guarantee happiness) and the most surprising fact I learned had to do with social mobility in the United States: while the mythology of the American Dream is alive and well, the US ranks third last in social mobility among developed countries, which means, "Moving up the socioeconomic ladder is nearly impossible. If you are born into poverty, you are likely to stay in poverty. If you are a middle-class kid, chances are you will be a middle-class adult. Ditto your kids." Celebrity culture makes people believe that "hitting the big time" is not only their ticket out of their social group, but that it's entire doable if you simply "reach for the stars". The following might be considered the ultimate conclusion that Caulfield drew, and even if it wasn't the book I was expecting to read, it makes the case for the importance of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?:
2. Stay active, exercise regularly and include some vigorous activities.
3. Eat a balanced and calorie-appropriate diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, etc.
4. Maintain a healthy weight (tough, I know).
5. Wear sunscreen.
6. Get an appropriate amount of sleep (which, for most, is between seven and nine hours a night).
That is it. Everything else is either total baloney or of such marginal value when compared to the impact of these actions as to be nearly irrelevant. For example, if you smoke or don't wear sunscreen, worrying about eating organic food is like Wile. E. Coyote using that tiny, broken umbrella to minimize the effects of a house-sized boulder falling on his head.
Celebrity culture, at best, is selling us a tiny, broken umbrella.
It seems that we are caught in a big, self-perpetuating celebrity-fueled cycle that goes something like this: declining social mobility and diminishing life options lead to increasing dreams of celebrity fame and fortune. This, in turn, enhances the power and allure of celebrity, which cause a focus (perhaps with an ever-increasing narcissistic resolve) on extrinsic aspirations that leads to less happiness and distracts us (and society more generally) from actions that may enhance social mobility, such as education and advocacy for social change.I've never been to Paltrow's lifestyle website Goop, so I have no idea if she's an advocate for education and social change, but it would be encouraging if more celebrities focussed on things that matter instead of inviting you to join them in the steaming of lady parts.
I don't rely on celebrities for health and beauty advice, so that wasn't really my interest in reading this book. However, one of my favourite pastimes is watching someone like the Science Babe debunking what she calls "woo" of all forms, and since it was in response to the Food Babe (I have no interest in providing her with a link, and thereby, profit from the traffic) that Yvette d'Entremont first started her site, I have especially enjoyed watching the debunking of Food Babe's particular brand of profitable and nonsensical health and beauty woo. (And I know that these were reposts by Science Babe of Chow Babe's memes, but I only follow SB. By the way, CB deserves debunking love, too.)
I would have liked to have seen Timothy Caulfield confront the rise of the internet health celebrity: partially because Gwyneth Paltrow's nutty lifestyle recommendations are internet based after all, but especially because someone like Vani Hari is becoming very rich off of bad advice, and unlike a truly public figure, she doesn't need to confront her detractors -- she is famous for banning anyone from her facebook and twitter feeds who even politely questions her authority and she's unlikely to be challenged to back up her advice while doing interviews for her latest film project.
And I would have also liked to have seen celebrities challenged on their other claims to expertise, like Leonardo DiCaprio's scolding at the Alberta Oil Sands or Daryl Hannah chaining herself to the White House fence to protest Keystone XL. And while I'm not saying that celebrities can't have an opinion about issues like climate change, and I actually do think it's admirable when someone uses their high profile to effect change, my only issue is with their supposed expertise: I don't think that DiCaprio or Hannah are more scientifically literate than I am, and every time someone like Neil Young is proved foolish with his support of biomass vehicles or boycott of Starbucks, it diminishes the authority of all celebrity social-meddlers. When I tried to make this point to my hippy-dippy friend Delight, she took offense and said that many celebrities do have greater scientific literacy than the average person because they have the leisure time to educate themselves on the big issues. So, yeah, I would have liked an authoritative response to that. Because I'm all about the schadenfreude.
One last point I want to remember is Caulfield's notion of cleansing as a type of moral purification:
I am speculating here, but I think one of the reasons cleanses have so much traction is that they are more than just a break: they are viewed, consciously or unconsciously, as a way to pay for our lifestyle sins. Cleanses are like a form of self-flagellation. They are short-term atonement for bad nutrition choices and consumption excess.
That was the vibe I noted when David Rakoff described his own cleanse in Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems -- and that title is instructive: cleansing seems to solve a uniquely First World Problem; only someone with essentially unlimited access to healthy foods would find salvation in starving himself. It reminds me also of this newspaper article I linked to in my review of Brave New World (and extends the notion of "First World Problems" to encompass our path towards the ever-more meaningless future that Huxley predicted):
(T)hink about all the ways people go out of their way to make themselves miserable. They run marathons. They climb Everest. They leave cushy jobs to launch risky start-ups. Paradoxically, wealth and security create more and more yearning for extreme conditions. You didn’t see 20,000 people lining up to run marathons in the Great Depression. Life itself was sufficiently difficult.Caulfield gave me plenty to think about and I hope his book reaches a wide audience.
