Look, we're really not trying to pick on you, Gwyneth.
After all, we adored you in "Shakespeare in Love." Your performance in "Seven" haunted us. And, hell, you even proved you've got serious rhythm as a recurring character in "Glee." That sassy rendition of CeeLo Green's "Forget You" made us want to belt it out right along with you, Gwyneth.
But then, via your lifestyle website Goop, you started suggesting we steam our vaginas, put jade eggs in our yonis, and shoot coffee up our butts β for our health. You hosted a health and wellness summit where speakers reportedly told us love can heal cancer. And then, Gwyneth, it got harder and harder to remember you fondly as the dancing and singing character "Holly Holliday" who fleetingly stole Will Schuester's heart.
Now, your infamous website is giving us advice on how to achieve our "leanest livable weight" β during Eating Disorder Awareness Week, no less β and we just can't. Can. Not. Livable? As in, the thinnest we can possibly be while still breathing? NO. COME ON, GWYNETH.
The article, called "Busting Diet Myths," is posted on Goop's website. The piece features an interview with Traci Mann, author of Secrets From the Eating Lab. While some of the advice (that diets don't work, for instance) is perfectly reasonable, people took offence with the term "leanest livable weight," which Mann describes as "the weight at the low end of your 'set range.'"
"Our set range is a genetically determined range of weight that your body generally keeps you in, despite your efforts to escape it. If your weight is below that range, biological changes due to calorie deprivation happen, and generally push you back into your set range," Mann said in the interview.
"However, if you stay within your set range β at the lower end of it β you should be able to maintain that weight without your body making those negative changes."
Mann does goes on to explain that our leanest livable weight is likely heavier than our "dream weight," and that we shouldn't aim to be below it because "it's where your body wants you to be, it's easy to maintain, and you can be healthy there." Which is actually ... OK advice, really.
And some people came to Goop's defence, accusing those offended of missing the point of the article.
But the term "leanest livable weight" β and its implications for eating disorders β is what got the people of Twitter up in arms.
"Gwyneth Paltrow is glamorizing eating disorders! Way to go!" celebrity gossip columnist Perez Hilton tweeted.
Goop has a history of promoting unhealthy eating habits
It's not the first time Paltrow has come under fire for promoting unhealthy eating habits. Last summer, Goop posted an article on "How to lose weight fast" that featured an interview with trainer Tracy Anderson. In the piece, Anderson recommends that to jump-start weight loss you should work out every single day "until you actually crave" it, "get off gluten," go "very low carb," and gives advice for dropping weight in a month, two weeks, a week, and even 48 hours.
"If you only have 48 hours, I would go with the leanest eating options," Anderson said, suggesting a diet of tea with protein powder for breakfast, a poached egg and a small salad for lunch, half a chocolate bar (which she sells, by the way) as a snack, and steamed plain fish with steamed spinach or asparagus for dinner.
"With this eating plan, plus a sweaty muscular structure and cardio workout, you could be down four pounds, but most likely two, unless you are a really good physical performer and you have the heat and humidity perfect in your workout environment," Anderson said.
In a blog post, Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a well-known Canadian OB-GYN and pain medicine physician (and one of Goop's most outspoken critics) called this method "Anorexia lite."
"Exercising daily until you 'crave it' and a regimen for dropping 14 lbs in four weeks or 8 lbs in two weeks is medically dangerous in the short-term and is not going to put anyone on a path for wellness. This is promoting anorexia and how the GOOP editors thought it was ethical to even ask this never mind publish it is simply incredible," Gunter wrote.