The Goop “Lab”
Hey, it’s a new year, let’s peddle more bullshit “wellness” to the adoring masses.
Let’s hear from Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta:
This has been the decade of misinformation. And, in the context of health, celebrities have led the charge.
It’s an easy buck, you know? You’re famous so people will buy what you market, so why waste the opportunity?
We’ve had the vagina steam (thanks, Gwyneth), jade vagina eggs (ditto), the vampire facial (Kim Kardashian West), bird poop facials (David and Victoria Beckham), facials made with discarded foreskin stem cells (Sandra Bullock), drinking your own urine (Madonna), placenta smoothies (more Kardashians) and too many crazy diets, cleanses and detoxes to mention. I could go on and on and on.
Bird poop facials. Nice.
But does it matter? Yes.
Celebrity health noise has had (and continues to have) a large and measurable impact. There is a growing body of literature that has demonstrated celebrity marketing, musing and news coverage can have an influence on a range of health related behaviors, including dieting, cancer screening, smoking and suicide. Pop culture coverage of a health topic, like Angelina Jolie’s decision to get genetic testing, can affect, for better or worse, the utilization rates of health services. And there seems little doubt that many current evidence-free and potentially harmful health trends — such a IV vitamin therapy, nonceliac gluten-free diets, cryotherapy and detoxification diets and procedures — would not be nearly as popular but for the associated celebrity endorsements.
…
Of course, this decade of celebrity health hogwash should also be considered in the broader context. This is the era of misinformation, a time when trust in public institutions is declining and people feel uncertain about what to believe about, well, everything. Celebrity wellness hype contributes to this “culture of untruth” by both inviting a further erosion of critical thinking and promoting what is popular and aspirational rather than what is true.
Truth matters, dammit.
With one foot in science and one foot in theatre, I often find myself cringing. Theatre people are usually early adopters…and long hold outs…on the worst sorts of fads, especially health fads. If I go to a theatre conference, odds are someone at my table will talk about their paleo- or keto- (or whateverelseo-) diet they are on, and why everyone should be on that diet. They will tout probiotics and supplements, and urge everyone in ear shot to quit seeing their doctor and start going to a (guru – yogi – spirit guide – chiropractor – Paltrow) immediately.
Theatre people dismiss science as “just another way of knowing”, but it isn’t even that good. They give lip service to all ideas being equal (they aren’t), but grant science less equality than other ideas. They dismiss it as male, white, western, cis-hetero, imperialist, authoritarian (they often mix up authoritative with authoritarian) way of thinking. They believe themselves to be superior because they have transcended all of that, and live on a higher plane of spirituality. Many of them have as little use for Christianity as I do, but embrace all eastern religions (or Native American religions) with delight and fervor.
So when I go to skeptic conferences (mostly FFRF these days; the others have started to go so far into being a trans- vehicle I found them not particularly interesting any more), I expect to have a nice weekend free of woo. Except…not. Still nonceliac gluten free, or paleo, or keto, or some other weird food fad. They can be skeptical right up until the moment it touches what they believe, and then…bam. Skepticism is out, fanaticism is in.
I must admit, I tend to be overly skeptical sometimes, resisting the use of melatonin for sleep (the evidence is not solid). I gave in, thinking I would demonstrate to my doctor why I didn’t think that would work. So far, it has. Placebo? I don’t think likely, because placebos usually work best if you believe in them, not if you doubt them. Random chance? Possibly. But it is the first time in my entire life that I have gone an entire month without trouble sleeping. So I’m keeping an open mind. Maybe…
Contrariwise, melatonin doesn’t work for me at all. What used to knock me out within minutes was an infusion of fresh catnip–no idea if that works for anyone else in the world. I think bodies are so different that it doesn’t usually hurt to at least try something as long as it’s not too expensive/risky/downright disgusting (that last seemingly part of the mystique of some of these ‘cures’).
Guest, my doctor used to suggest Benadryl for me to sleep, because I also have horrible allergies. Turns out Benadryl doesn’t make me sleepy at all, which is good, because it seems to be the only thing that helps my allergies, and I need to use it during the day.
Caffeine isn’t very good at keeping me awake, either. Go figure.
Oh, I thought for sure this was going to be about the hilarious poster for Paltrow’s Netflix show. The one that Georgia O’Keefe would find “a little much.”
There are so many varieties of Goopshit around these days, it is hard to tell the good from the bad.
;-)
Well now I’m going to have to find Gwyneth’s poster.
Hahahaha
Starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the jade egg!
Interesting. I’ve been to literally dozens of what I called ASH conventions (atheist/skeptic/humanist) and none of the skeptic ones had attendees promoting woo (with the exception of Believers bemusedly looking to see what the Other Side was like, and one poor woman I sat next to at lunch who was clearly unclear on the concept and thought we were all skeptical of The Establishment and Materialistic Science.) Humanists were mostly similar, with some minor nutrition woo (or exaggeration.)
It was the atheist conventions which would turn into fun and games when people who rejected God didn’t see any reason to reject, say, ghosts, — and other folks would jump in with reasons.
(Now I’m wondering if I ever met you … I was supposed to meet Ophelia once at TAM, and it went all wrong and to my eternal regret I did not)
Sastra, since I attract all the kooks at theatre conferences, maybe I’m some sort of woo magnet? Maybe I have something written on my forehead that says Please annoy this woman? I don’t know, I tend to avoid mirrors. I look too much like my mother, and I don’t need that stress.
If you’ve been to FFRF or American Atheists, we might have met. I used to go to a lot more conferences, like Reasonfest in Lawrence, KS and went to Skepticon a couple of times and to Apostocon for several years before it moved south and died then moved back to Omaha as some sort of music and comedy show, or something. I also went to AHA at least once. I’ve never been to TAM, though. Too expensive for my teacher’s salary.
@ iknklast;
Hm, of those, maybe at FFRF.
I no longer attend due to health reasons, and sorely miss being around My People.
But Ophelia, hog wash makes the best enemas!
Ach I’m sorry about the missed meeting, Sastra.
lololololol!
Paltrow, on only having one life: “How can we milk the shit out of this?”
So…mission accomplished?
Maybe they just like otters?
Well, otters are cute. The fact that I am not cute does not make me any less an otter. Transotters are otters.