Gwyneth Paltrow Under Major Heat for ‘Leanest Liveable Weight’ Goal That Popped up on Goop as Scientists Condemn It as ‘Dangerous Suggestion’

Gwyneth Paltrow is facing backlash from fans and diet experts alike after her lifestyle website Goop endorsed readers reaching their “leanest liveable weight,” something that one Cambridge University scientist and author slammed as “irresponsible” and “dangerous.” In a blog post titled “‘Busting Diet Myths,” the fitness guru’s website featured an interview with American psychologist Dr. Traci Mann, who claimed that people should aim to achieve “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 — at the lower end of it — you should be able to maintain that weight without your body making those negative changes.”

The interview immediately drew backlash on social media, with people slamming the recommendation as a “justification for eating disorders” and of promoting “unsafe, dangerous messages of thinness.”

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Cambridge University scientist Dr. Giles Yeo expressed similar concern, stating that encouraging people to be at the “low end” of a weight scale is “irresponsible” as it suggests that people should be “as skinny as possible” without dying.

“This is a dangerous suggestion, as many people will take it to mean they should be as thin as possible. It is irresponsible because the idea is so open to misinterpretation, especially for young girls susceptible to eating disorders,” he said. “The problem with many of Goop’s recommendations is that they are not based on science, but pseudoscience.”

Dr. Yeo, who has presented BBC programme Trust Me, I’m A Doctor, said at the New Scientist Live event in London on Sunday that the Goop article, as well as similar articles, creates a “fear of food,” sending people into fad diets.

“It’s a silly idea because there is no clear way to determine what your leanest liveable weight is,” he said. “It is therefore nigh-on impossible to find a target to stick to. People should not be afraid of food, and ‘diet’ should not have become such a loaded term. Goop is part of the reason that people have become afraid of eating. We need to love our food, just eat less of it.”

Responding to the criticism, Dr. Mann said that she is “strongly and clearly opposed to strict dieting” and that the Goop article is “specifically about not dieting, not trying to lose too much weight and not doing anything unhealthy or extreme.” She added that the term “leanest liveable weight” instead has to do with “the leanest weight you can be without doing any strict dieting or unhealthy behavior.”

Paltrow has not commented on the backlash.