Gary Schwitzer of HealthNewsReview.org has pointed me to an incisive and entertaining post by a Canadian writer who makes toast of Gwyneth Paltrow's new cookbook, "It's All Good: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great."
The blogger is Julia Belluz, the senior editor at The Medical Post. The blog is Science-ish, a joint project of the Canadian publications Maclean's and the Medical Post, and the McMaster Health Forum at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. And the post should put Paltrow out of business.
"Science-ish was immediately stung by the panorama of pseudoscience premises on which the cookbook rests," writes Belluz. She continues:
[Paltrow] undergoes what sounds like every medical test imaginable, and finds she has a thyroid problem, anemia, vitamin D deficiency, a congested liver, hormones that were “off,” and “inflammation” in her system. “Another roster of tests” exposed “high levels of metals and a blood parasite.” Mixing her young children into the madness, she gets them tested for food sensitivities, too, and finds they are all intolerant of gluten, dairy, and chickens’ eggs, among other things.
Some of the ailments, such as "inflammation in her system," Belluz writes, "are questionable bordering on quackish," but "the most distressing part of the book is what comes next." Really? How much worse can this get?
Paltrow's doctor, instead of addressing Paltrow's complaints in the usual way, "advises she cut out basically everything but quinoa and lettuce," Belluz writes. "No meat, potatoes, sugar, dairy, eggs, coffee, alcohol, wheat, and, oddly, bell peppers, corn, and eggplant." And she prescribes this to readers of the book, Belluz writes.
"The enduring question that Paltrow’s book raises is why we continually buy into the junk advice of celebrity health promoters who have no specialization in health and everything to gain from us believing their claims."
I know the answer to that one. It's because they are so good at presenting it. Celebrities become celebrities because a lot of people like them, or find them amusing, or find their work touching and profound. Celebs know how to tell a story and how to move people, and that works whether they are playing Shakespeare, Shakespeare in Love, or the role of a diet guru.
Need another timely example? Watch Jeremy Irons talking to HuffingtonPost about gay marriage. He's saying something about taxes, fathers marrying sons, incest, and dogs. It makes even less sense than Paltrow.
But he says it so well.
-Paul Raeburn
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