Paltrow lifestyle brand event draws critics
Gwyneth Paltrow-backed lifestyles brand Goop is making a push into Canada, but critics in the medical community say they’re ready to push back.
Goop chief content officer Elise Loehnen announced Wednesday that the online wellness empire is bringing its series of In Goop Health conferences to Canada for the first time this fall.
With tickets retailing at $400, the event at a “goopified” Stanley Park Pavilion is billed as a “mind-expanding day” featuring panels, wellness workshops and healthful eats prepared by Vancouver chefs.
“(Canadians) are sometimes even a little bit ahead of Goop in terms of where you are on the wellness spectrum, so it feels like a totally natural brand affinity,” Loehnen said.
But some of Goop’s most prominent Canadian skeptics disagree with that assessment.
“They’re in our backyard now,” said Timothy Caulfield, an Edmonton-based health science expert and author of “Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash.”
“As a scientific community, we have to start thinking of ways that we can use things like the Goop summit to talk about the science, to talk about what the evidence really says, and what you really can do to live a healthy life.”
While many of Goop’s posts are devoted to travel tips and diet-friendly recipes, the brand has also promoted controversial products and practices that critics say have no proven medical benefits, such as a vaginal steaming service that purportedly “cleanses your uterus,” according to the site.
“We typically feature a wide range (of opinions), including many western doctors, and they’re not necessarily debating what’s in the medical canon,” said Loehnen.
Loehnen said Goop’s content is vetted by a lawyer and a team of scientists and doctors.
Goop is also bringing on a fact-checker to review and contextualize information on its website, she said, and working to assign clearer guide posts to help readers distinguish between claims grounded in modern science and those that are more “speculative.”
But Caulfield said if the website was fact-checked to his standards, there would be little content left, and Goop’s wares would look much less inviting to consumers with full information. “(Goop) can’t say that they’re going to try to have evidence-based fact-checking and then reject the whole concept of science,” said Caulfield. “They want the best of both worlds.”
Winnipeg-raised gynecologist and obstetrician Jennifer Gunter, who calls herself the “people’s choice” for Goop fact-checker, attended the “In Goop Health” conference in New York earlier this year and on her blog challenged many of the claims made by speakers there.
She said she expects Vancouver will see a similar “carnival sideshow” when Goop comes to town in October.