Dear Gwyneth,
I felt compelled to write to you after listening to a recent interview you did on a wellness podcast. To be honest, I don’t usually follow much of what you’re up to. I listened because, like many, some clips made their way into my social media feed, and it was hard to ignore the big responses. Some folks were furious, and they accused you of glorifying disordered eating. Some folks called you names and made fun of your body and your appearance. Others accused those angry, mean commenters of not understanding the intricacies of wellness. They defended you and your way of life. I listened to the podcast because I wanted the whole picture.
I listened and watched and spent most of the podcast waiting. I waited for the interviewer—a doctor, I believe—to interrupt as you described starving your body. I waited for one of you to call it starving. I waited for you to acknowledge the IV attached to you, and once you did, I waited for you to describe the use of the IV. I waited to hear that IV fluids are generally not designed for bodies that are well. I waited for you to admit that your fixation on wellness thinly veils a fixation on making your body as small as it can be. I waited for you to acknowledge how sad and dangerous this endeavor is. So dangerous, sometimes, that it requires traveling with IVs full of vitamins so that you feel well enough to chat. When the interviewer questioned if perhaps the criticism you get for your work with Goop is a product of the patriarchy, of people being uncomfortable with successful women, I waited for you to disavow this idea. I waited for you to say that in order to participate in the highest echelons of society, to attain power, you’ve upheld some of its most insidious ideas—especially, in this case, thinness at all costs.
What I heard in this interview was fear of aging, of death. I heard a pitch for Goop soup. I heard lots of words that I had to Google, like “ozone therapy” and “glutathione” and “phosphatidylcholine”—the last one regarded as a “wonder component” for weight loss, according to a few sources. I heard giggling with embarrassment about showing up to an interview hooked up to an IV. I heard it normalized by the interviewer, going so far as to say that it was “on brand” for you to do so.
I heard a version of myself in you. There’s a part of me that was jealous of you using an IV. There’s a part of me that felt curious about intermittent fasting. A part of me wants to eat more soups. There’s a part of me that wants people to see me as a shriveled banana—the internet’s words, not mine—because my body has shrunken just so. That part of me is not well.
What I heard on this podcast was a woman who has surrendered to the part of herself that is not well. I heard you, Gwyneth, grasping for affirmation that you are okay. I heard this doctor do that for you. What’s more, I heard him encourage you and insinuate that your work helping others learn tips and tricks for thinness is worthy, wholesome work. This is an exchange I recognize because I have had it. The words were different—less phosphatidylcholine, more sweet potatoes—but I’ve desperately shared my health strategies with others before. I used to share with people that I’d been diagnosed as anorexic in the hopes that those people would gasp in disbelief—not you, not the pastry chef! Sometimes they did just this. Sometimes they asked for more tips and tricks of how I stayed so thin working in bakeries.
I used to think that making food for others would somehow negate any of the harm I might be doing to myself. I used to not see it as harmful at all but as the only path forward. I thought loving others with food was my way, but I didn’t see that for me, this way of life inherently required not loving myself. I heard you trying to rationalize your path, too, to equalize it. But selling sex positivity for women does not make you well. Accusing others of victimizing you because of your womanhood does not make you well.
To be clear, what I heard was, in fact, a victim of the pressures of society. I heard you, as I have before, describe your path as wellness because at every turn, the powers that be have confirmed for you that keeping your body thin is how to survive. I waited for you to acknowledge that as you declare your sickness as wellness for all, you surrender to all manners of oppression. These powers that be aren’t interested in wellness, they’re interested in power, and I heard you giving yourself to them. In the absence of this acknowledgement, I heard you confirm that you will do anything to protect your thinness, your whiteness, your wealth. The interviewer surrenders with you, too, and in the process, you assure us listeners that you are the oppressors.
What I heard on this podcast sounded so dangerously enticing to a part of me that I am trying desperately to heal. I was waiting for your hopes to heal, too. But you confirm with your giggles that you are unwilling to acknowledge the immense cost of thinness for most of our bodies. You refuse to reveal the parts of yourself that might know that traveling with an IV is impractical at least, a sign of malnourishment at its worst. I don’t mean to make light of the strength it takes to acknowledge the parts of you that are unwell, the parts that have surrendered to your role as oppressor. It’s taken me a decade of healing to see how the part of me that is not well is connected to so much more than my own individual wellness. And still, that part of me gets distracted sometimes by soups that promise to keep me thin. But I would like to take this moment to daydream about the power that your courage to name your IV and your soups for what they are might have in redirecting the oppressive powers that be.
I take no issue with successful women except when that success comes at the cost of others. You may never see the faces of the folks affected by your conversation with this doctor. You’ll never face the people who stand so firmly in denial that their wellness might be making them sick that they isolate themselves from their families and loved ones. You’ll never meet the young men spending their savings on bone broth. You’ll never meet the women who can’t afford to travel with IVs, so instead they starve themselves into hospitalization. If they survive, you’ll never see them drown in medical debt. In another time, my face might have been affected like this. You surely would never have known.
I’m not interested in making fun of you. I feel too much like you. I hope for your healing. I hope you reflect on your wellness before evangelizing it further. In the meantime, however, I think it’s appropriate to request that you and the doctor remove the interview and any clips from public viewing. Trying to navigate society’s systems of oppression has proven hard for you—that’s evident in this conversation. It’s even harder for nearly everyone else. For the sake of all the fat and Black and brown and trans and disabled bodies in this world that don’t need one more oppressor, remove this podcast conversation and accompanying video.
Love to you,
Vanessa Sakosky
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