Gillian McKeith: Difference between revisions

Gillian McKeith (born 1959) is a Scottish nutritionist, television presenter, and author. She fronts Channel 4's You Are What You Eat and Granada Television's Dr Gillian McKeith's Feel Fab Forever in the UK.

She has a weekly column in Reveal magazine, and is the author of a number of books, including Miracle superfood: wild blue-green algae (1996); Dr Gillian McKeith's living food for health (2004); You Are What You Eat (2004); and Dr Gillian McKeith's Ultimate Health Plan: The Diet Programme That Will Keep You Slim for Life (2006).

McKeith's nutritional advice focuses on a pescetarian vegetarian diet high in organic fruits and vegetables, combined with an exercise programme, and no processed or high-calorie foods. She also recommends a detox diet. McKeith is a proponent of colonic irrigation and also promotes her own range of products. She says that yeast is harmful and that the colours of foods are nutritionally significant, and claims she can diagnose people's ailments by examining their tongues or their excrement.

Critics of McKeith contend that her methods have a veil of questionable science - some consider her advice potentially dangerous. She says she uses a holistic (rather than the usual medical consensus) approach to nutrition. Her nutritional advice and the validity of her qualifications have both been questioned by health professionals, including John Garrow, chairman of Healthwatch and retired head of nutrition at St Bartholomew's Hospital, as well as doctor and journalist Ben Goldacre in the "Bad Science" column of The Guardian. She has been censured twice by the Advertising Standards Authority, most recently to prevent her from using the title Dr. on her products.

Personal life and early career

McKeith was born in Perth, Scotland in 1959 on a council estate. Her father was a civil servant and her mother an office worker. She has said that she was raised eating the junk food she now advises against. Her father died of lung cancer at the age of 74. At his memorial service, she said that he is the inspiration for her crusade against smoking and that his last words to her had been: "Please, spread the word and tell people never to pick up a packet of cigarettes."

According to the Mail on Sunday, "McKeith met her American husband, lawyer Howard Magaziner, in Edinburgh where he was spending a year studying. At the time he ran an extremely successful chain of health food shops in the United States with which she was to become involved. The company they now run from their Hampstead home had a turnover of almost £900,000 last year but the business they ran in 1996 spiralled into debt before declaring insolvency owing $117,000." The couple now live in London and have two daughters.

According to McKeith's Channel 4 biography, she was "celebrity health reporter" for the Joan Rivers Show in the U.S., but this claim is disputed by the Mail on Sunday. Her mission, according to her website, is to empower people to "improve their lives through information, food and lifestyle".

Education and qualifications

McKeith obtained a degree in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh in 1981, later moving to the United States, where she worked in marketing and international business. In 1984, she received a master's in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1994, she obtained a master's degree, and in 1997, a Ph.D., both in holistic nutrition via a distance-learning programme from the non-accredited American Holistic College of Nutrition, now the Clayton College of Natural Health in Birmingham, Alabama. She writes on her website that she holds certificates from the London School of Acupuncture and the Kailash Centre of Oriental Medicine, and is a post-graduate member of The Centre for Nutrition Education.

Goldacre has written that parts of McKeith's Ph.D. thesis may have been published as a 48-page pamphlet entitled "Miracle Superfood: Wild Blue-Green Algae." Goldacre says of it that it is "what I could only describe as Cargo Cult science: she's going through the motions, but the content, [on] closer inspection, is like an eerie parody of an academic text". He argues that it is full of "anecdote, but no data"; that "[s]cientific terminology is wilfully conflated with fanciful new age waffle" and that some of it is "plainly absurd" such as her claim that "[i]f you do not have enough RNA/DNA [you] may ultimately age prematurely."

Regarding McKeith's membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, Goldacre writes that he purchased a "certified professional membership" from the same institution for $60 on behalf of his late cat, Henrietta.

In 2004, John Garrow, professor emeritus in human nutrition at London University, questioned McKeith's credentials as a researcher:

Four years ago, when she came to Britain with her book Living Health, I challenged her to show me one piece of proof to back up what she was saying. I wanted her to show me one published paper to prove that she is, as she claims, a scientist doing research and studies ... I said I would pay her £1,000 and apologise for my remarks. That money is still on the table. Her husband phoned me claiming I was defaming her so I said sue me. I'm still waiting."

At one time, McKeith's management company's website said she had a diploma pending from the Australasian College of Health Science; the college told journalists that she had been in contact with them, but had never enrolled there. McKeith's lawyers have said her enrolment was deliberately kept confidential. Her website states that she is "currently studying with The Australasian College Of Health Sciences, USA to become registered as a medical herbalist."

On February 12, 2007, it was widely reported that McKeith had agreed to cease using the academic title "Dr." in advertisements, after a complaint from a member of the public to the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's advertising industry's self-regulatory body. An ASA spokesman said: "The complainant was challenging whether Gillian McKeith was a qualified, accredited doctor. We put the complaint to the advertiser McKeith Research and they agreed to remove it." The Guardian reported that ASA recommendations had concluded following an investigation that her use of the title "Doctor" was "likely to mislead the public." McKeith told the Guardian she understood the offending ad was a leaflet without the usual disclaimer she was not a medical doctor. She said she understood the honorific had to go from leaflets, but not from all adverts. Max Clifford, McKeith's PR representative, said that she had not misled the public: "This was one complaint in relation to one leaflet from one trade show, and it was withdrawn. I hardly think that's misleading."

When questioned by the Glasgow Herald about her doctorate, McKeith said: "I have nothing to be ashamed of. My qualifications are second to none. People out there would love to have my qualifications and expertise." On Clayton College, she said: "I could have gone anywhere I wanted but I chose Clayton. There was cutting-edge research being put forward by people who were pioneers at the time."

McKeith's products

McKeith is a popular author; her book You Are What You Eat reportedly sold just under one million copies up to August 2005, and was the most borrowed non-fiction library book in the UK between July 2005 and June 2006 according to the British Public Lending Right organisation. At her website she sells books, advice, club membership, food (e.g. Goji berries, "Living Food Energy Powder", "Immune Defence" pills, weight loss pills, "Raw and unprocessed wild blue green algae", etc.), and gadgets (blender, juicers, sprouters, and a mini-trampoline).

In November 2006 McKeith was censured by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for selling unproven herbal sex aids. The products, "Fast Formula Wild Pink Yam Complex" and "Fast Formula Horny Goat Weed Complex" were both advertised as having been shown to promote sexual satisfaction in a controlled study. The MHRA found that McKeith was guilty of "selling goods without legal authorisation whilst making medicinal claims about their efficacy" i.e. advertising and selling unlicensed medicines. The products have since been withdrawn.

McKeith's website suggested the sex aids had been withdrawn "[d]ue to the new EU licensing laws regarding herbal products". According to McKeith, "the EU bureaucrats are clearly concerned that people in the UK are having too much good sex." The MHRA disagreed, according to Goldacre: "The [MHRA] press office were very helpful and told me: 'This has nothing to do with new EU regulations.' And just to be absolutely clear: 'They were never legal for sale in the UK.' They also point out that there's no excuse for not knowing about the regulations, and that … the MHRA’s Medicines Borderline Section offers free advice on the phone." The MHRA told the Glasgow newspaper The Herald that "[a]s Ms McKeith's organisation had already been made aware of the requirements of medicines legislation in previous years, there was no reason at all for all the products not to be compliant with the law."

Television shows

McKeith is the presenter of You Are What You Eat, a Celador-produced television programme broadcast on Channel 4 in which she helps to motivate the people featured in the programme to lose weight and change their lifestyle. Ian Marber, author and nutritionist, describes her as very fervent in her beliefs and thinks of her as a sort of health televangelist.

In each episode of the fourth series, called Gillian Moves In: You Are What You Eat, two people are chosen to stay with McKeith at a house in London "with no escape". She first shows each of the subjects a display of their typical week's food consumption. The food is laid out on a table in a cold, congealed and unpleasant state. McKeith often makes comments at this point about this high-fat diet putting the subjects at risk of an early death. The subjects are often videoed emptying the display into refuse sacks.

According to Jan Moir, columnist for the The Daily Telegraph, she is seen "shouting at sobbing, fat women while forcing them to eat quinoa and undergo frequent sessions of colonic irrigation enthusiastically administered by her good self." She then imparts advice on diet and exercise and forbids alcoholic beverages. Once trained, the participants can return home and are expected to stick to their new regime of diet, exercise and abstinence for eight weeks. If they fail to stick to the diet, McKeith moves in with them to ensure they follow her advice. The participants are shown at the end of the eight weeks to have lost body mass, and say that they feel healthier.

She often attributes some of the featured clients' health problems to a vitamin or mineral deficiency. There are certain foods she considers to be particularly nutritious, and these are often mentioned in her programmes. These can be unusual foods, some of which are available only from healthfood shops or from McKeith's own range of products.

Asked about McKeith's advice, Amanda Wynne, senior dietician with the British Dietetic Association, said: "We are appalled. I think it is obvious she hasn't a clue about nutrition. In fact her advice, if followed to the limit, could be dangerous. Her TV programme takes obese people and puts them on a crash diet that is very hazardous to health."

A spokesperson for Celador, the production company behind McKeith's television series, said that McKeith had never claimed to be a medical doctor, and that the criticism of her is reflective of her rejection of traditionalist approaches to nutrition: "[Y]ou have to realise that when someone takes a holistic approach, there is always going to be an old school of traditionalists who are going to be sceptical and besmirch that. That's what's going on."

The Daily Mail reports that Lorna Slater took part in McKeith's programme in 2005, lost twenty-one pounds, but regained it afterwards. Slater said, "she demoralised me totally ... she gave me a balloon - put two drinking straws underneath it and said: That's what you look like — I ended up in tears. Then she gave me a completely unrealistic eating plan which involved very little meat or fish and lots of food that disagreed with my system like avocado — which makes me sick — and cucumber. I had to boil mung beans all day long, which took hours, made the flat smell horrible and tasted more like the gravel at the bottom of a fish tank than food. Although I tried hard and did lose weight, it was totally unrealistic."

Diagnostic techniques

In her book You Are What You Eat, McKeith advocates a variety of diagnostic techniques controversial among those with medical qualifications. Among these are examination of the tongue, the mapping of pimples, and detailed scrutiny of faecal matter and urine. Many exterior parts of the body she says provide insight into illness: "I always think of the tongue as being like a window to the organs. The extreme tip correlates to the heart, the bit slightly behind is the lungs. The right side shows what the gallbladder is up to and the left side the liver. The middle indicates the condition of your stomach and spleen, the back the kidneys, intestines and womb."

McKeith also assesses people's nutritional needs based on the appearance of their nails, hair, lips, or skin. The presence of depression or PMS she also attributes to mineral deficiencies. McKeith maintains that the locations of pimples provide a means of locating the source of health problems. John Garrow says of McKeith's diagnostic abilities: "One of the programmes showed her prodding at the abdomen of a very large lady saying she could feel her intestines were inflamed. That is impossible. There is a large layer of fat between you and any intestines – it would be like trying to guess what's under a mattress."

McKeith argues that examining and smelling faeces can give clues to bodily misfunction. She frequently engages in this activity during her television shows. In apparent reference to this proclivity, her management company NCI boasts that "[i]n You Are What You Eat, Gillian literally gets to the bottom of some of the country's worst eaters." The technique has led to Ben Goldacre dubbing her "the awful poo lady (TAPL)". According to Catherine Collins, chief dietician at St George's Hospital, London, "it is impossible to diagnose medical conditions from looking at a normal brown stool."

Nutritional advice

McKeith's advice is based on both standard and non-standard medicine, including common sense tips, such as avoiding shopping when hungry, eating fruit and vegetables instead of cakes or buns, and preferring fresh fish over fish-fingers. She recommends a detox diet in which the "top 12 toxic terrors to avoid" are: smoking; caffeine; alcohol; chocolate and sweet snacks; pub snacks: crisps, nuts, pork scratchings; processed meat; the white stuff: white bread, white pasta, white rice; added sugar; lazy food: takeaways and ready meals; table salt; bad fats – saturated fats; and fizzy drinks.

Nutrition Australia offers a critique of the book You Are What you Eat, concluding that McKeith's ideas are "a complex mixture of orthodox nutrition, misinterpretations of orthodox nutrition, new-age wishful thinking, Eastern (especially traditional Chinese) medicine and reflexology. Her teachings are generally diametrically opposed to those of current, science-based nutrition and she is not a reliable source of information on how diet can benefit health."

Goldacre writes in a Media Watch column in the British Medical Journal that he finds it offensive that the British media is "filled with people who adopt a cloak of scientific authority while apparently misunderstanding the most basic aspects of biology." As an example, he discusses McKeith's recommendation of eating darker leaves because they are rich in chlorophyll, quoting her claim that it will "really oxygenate your blood". Goldacre says this is erroneous: "plants only make oxygen in light: it’s very dark in your bowel; and even if, to prove a point, you put a searchlight up your bottom, you probably wouldn't absorb too much oxygen through the gut wall."

McKeith's advice in her book Miracle Superfood: Wild Blue-Green Algae is disputed. Jan Krokowski of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency wrote a letter to New Scientist as a concerned expert, warning readers that "[b]lue-green algae — properly called cyanobacteria — are able to produce a range of very powerful toxins, which pose health hazards to humans and animals and can result in illness and death."

In response, McKeith argues that she is a pioneer:

I am on a crusade to change the nation and fortunately, or unfortunately, that is going to put me in the limelight. But you can't have change without a bit of resistance. They can try to attach stigma to me, but it will bounce off, back on to them. I refute anyone who is trying to bring me down. I'm proof that if you're trying to forge a new way ahead, you're going to ruffle a few feathers.

Legal action and lawyers' letters

McKeith is taking legal action against The Sun over comments made about her in 2004, and in addition to John Garrow has threatened legal action against Google, a blogger called PhDiva for making claims about nutritionists, and Eclectech, a website, for hosting an animation of her.

Awards

In May 2005, McKeith was given the Best Organic Businesses 2005 Consumer Education Award by the Soil Association, a British charity promoting organic food and standards, in recognition of her work in "tackling obesity, championing healthier eating and promoting the contribution that organic fruit, vegetables and other products can make to sound nutrition."

Bibliography

• Miracle Superfood: Wild Blue-Green Algae: the nutrient powerhouse that stimulates the immune system, boosts brain power and guards against disease (1996) ISBN 0-879-83729-2
• Ten Steps to Perfect Health for New Mothers (Keats, Enfield 2002) ISBN 0-879-83988-0
• Dr Gillian McKeith's living food for health: 12 natural superfoods to transform your health (2004) ISBN 0-749-92673-2
• You Are What You Eat: The Plan That Will Change Your Life (2004) ISBN 0-452-28717-0
• You Are What You Eat Cookbook(2005) ISBN 0-7181-4797-9
• Dr Gillian McKeith's Ultimate Health Plan: The Diet Programme That Will Keep You Slim for Life (Michael Joseph 2006) ISBN 0-718-14891-6
• Dr Gillian McKeith’s shopping guide. (Michael Joseph, London, 2006) ISBN 0-718-14954-8

See also

• Colon hydrotherapy
• Detox diet
• Food intolerance
• Organic food
• Quackery
• False advertising

Further reading

• Gillian McKeith's website, accessed November 29, 2006.
• "You Are What You Eat", website of the television programme, accessed November 29, 2006.
• McKeith's entry on her management company's website