My New Year vow: Defy the wellness wafflers

HOW are your New Year’s resolutions going? I’ve kept all mine. Well, not exactly. I managed one day without sugar, one day without booze, a couple with some exercise and stayed off social media for a few more. And I ate a vegan meal. In fact, I’m still eating it. As the comedian Victoria Wood once said of getting through a bowl of muesli, it’s time-consuming work.

I should have done a little better, I know. But no matter, salvation is at hand!

Gwyneth Paltrow, goddess of wellbeing, eliminator of life’s toxins, the way and the light to a better you, is galloping towards us on her kale-and-crystal unicorn. Her new series arrives on Netflix in two weeks. It is called The Goop Lab – the latest extension of her lifestyle brand goop (the small ‘g’ being merely the beginning of countless irritations the actress provides).

For those who’ve not had the pleasure, goop began in 2008 as a weekly newsletter Paltrow wrote ‘to nourish the inner aspect’ of her followers.

Clearly, so many women’s inner aspects were unnourished that Paltrow set up a website, goop, where they could buy food for the soul blessed by Herself. Or failing that, a £179 set of meditation bells, £30 emotional detox bath salts, assorted herbal ‘ smudge’ mists, or ayurvedic antioxidants. At one point it recommended £632 loo paper.

You can – and should – laugh at this guff, but Paltrow’s rise to purveyor of inner and outer health and high priestess of purgatives is a serious business because she is just the extreme tip of the iceberg. Beneath her lies an entire wellness industry that is dedicated to preying on our insecurities, our longing for shortcuts to health and happiness, our ceaseless searching for new ways to fix old miseries.

Much is common-sense and good for us. Our body would welcome a Morning Smoothie containing ‘Moon Juice Vanilla Mushroom Adaptogenic Protein’ more than a McDonald’s milkshake, even if our tastebuds did not.

Doing yoga is better for the joints than sitting hunched over a desk all day and curled up on the sofa all evening. Then there are the suggestions that won’t do us any good, though are unlikely to do much harm. Crystal energy absorption, for example. Or magnetic energy therapy. Indeed, anything with the word ‘energy’ in it.

But then there are things that can be actively harmful – either because people take them too far (intermittent fasting, perhaps, among those already prone to eating disorders), or because the word ‘natural’ is not synonymous with ‘harmless’. Spirulina (an algae-based dietary supplement), for example, is toxic to people with some conditions and can interfere with prescription medications.

And that’s even if it’s not contaminated with liver-damaging microcystins, as has been the case in America where supplements are not as tightly regulated as food and drugs.

ULTIMATELY, everything depends on people’s vulnerability and on how easily our gullibility can be exploited. Common- sense living doesn’t require expensive gadgets such as juicers and spiralisers, nor does life depend on a sprinkling of organic chia seeds harvested by a druid under a full moon. Mostly, we should just eat an extra apple.

There’s no need to jump on the latest commercial bandwagon as it reaches terminal velocity and fleeces its passengers. In January, when we’re all trying to improve and reinvent ourselves, we are the most susceptible. Indeed, if wellness worked, we’d all look like Paltrovian fat-free glowsticks by now.

Eat that apple and go to bed early. ‘Everything in moderation’ is the most boring and, alas, the best advice. Ignore the rest.