MindBodyGreen (Mbg) is a health, wellness, and lifestyle industry behemoth. Their website features regularly published articles, a podcast, classes and certificates, a panel of experts, and their own product line. With such offerings, popularity, and influence, it's essential for consumers to know more about them.
A convenience store of health and wellness content
Defining what Mbg does is a bit hard to pin down. According to Bloomberg, they provide “health care services… tools and information to revitalize health, mind, and body.” Mbg is a bit more detailed in their description.
“Since 2009, mindbodygreen has offered a 360-degree approach to well-being and made it our mission to make the research-based solutions of functional medicine and holistic healing widely available. Our groundbreaking supplements and personal care lines target the top concerns of modern well-being seekers. Our online classes and trainings invite students to learn from the world's top experts in functional nutrition, yoga, meditation, fitness, breathwork, relationships, and more.”
Basically, they provide guidance, advice, and products overseen by a panel of experts on health and wellness. They are a one-stop-shop for
- All your wellness needs and health questions.
- Articles include mental health, integrative health, women's health, beauty, and others.
- Online classes in nutrition and even a health coaching certificate program.
- They provide product reviews and, of course, their own line of health and wellness products.
They've built a convenience store of health and wellness content and products for you to peruse and purchase.
Articles
Arguably, the largest part of Mbg's website is its articles. According to their editorial process,
“Our carefully selected writers are trained on our high standards for sourcing and reporting when they join Mbg. As an editorial team, we're obsessed with finding (and sharing) the things people want to know—and doing it in a way that enables them to take action and inform their health choices as best as possible. In our mission to make the most relevant, useful, and up-to-date content for our readers, we also uncover the best health and lifestyle products to support your well-being journey.”
Carefully selected, trained, high standards, sourcing, and actionable are all reassuring and soothing words to read in an editorial process. But in this day and age, those words are table stakes, the minimum we should expect. However, this is quickly called into question once we start digging into independent assessments. According to Media Bias/Fact Check, Mbg’s factual reporting is rated as “mixed," and their content as “strong" on the pseudoscience meter.
They are characterized as a high-traffic website with low credibility. [1] Specifically, “articles promote incredible benefits from herbs, diets, and exercise routines that simply are not validated through peer-reviewed science.”
“Overall, MindBodyGreen produces a fair amount of legitimate, useful content, but we have no choice but to label them strong Pseduoscience based on fantastic claims not supported by the consensus of science.”
This cuts right through the heart of the claims made in Mbg’s editorial process. If the advice and recommendations they provide, especially in the health sphere, are suspect, who exactly are these experts overseeing content?
Experts – Sharing knowledge, guiding “you along your personal wellness journey.”
The Mbg Collective is their panel that reviews content, recommendations, etc. Like any panel of experts, this is supposed to allow you to feel that you are getting the best in evidence-backed health and wellness advice.
“We refer to our experts as the Mbg collective—which expands beyond medical experts to include certified yoga teachers, therapists, nutritionists, and spiritual leaders. This integration of multiple fields ensures we're always pushing for the most holistic approach to well-being.” – Mbg Editorial Process
So, who are these experts?
The Mbg Collective comprises just over 50 people, with purported expertise on everything from medicine to style and straight-up pseudoscience (e.g., astrology). Several people are no strangers to defenders of critical thinking and rigorous science: Will Cole and Mark Hyman to start with. Mr. Quantum Healing, Deepak Chopra. There's Frank Lipman of swine flu fame. Sara Gottfried, a protégé of anti-vaxxer Christiane Northrup. David Perlmutter is famous for the shoddy science and bogus theories behind Grain Brain and more. So far, we're off to a very shaky start with people who have publicly been shown to profit off the pseudoscientific claims that they make.
Aside from that credentialed list, additional people in the Mbg Collective include but are not limited to:
- Gisele Bündchen – listed as an Environmental Advocate, but you know her from being a supermodel who was formerly married to Tom Brady
- Troy Aikman – listed as NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback and Entrepreneur
- The AstroTwins – astrologers
- Melissa Urban – founder of the Whole 30 Diet
- Dana Claudat – listed as a Designer and Feng Shui master
- Deborah Hanekamp – listed as a Seeress and founder of Mama Medicine, which, no joke, sells vulva lipstick. [2]
The charitable conclusion may be that some of these people are simply celebrity endorsers who don't actually review any content. But if that is the case, why list them on your panel of experts? Mbg identifies them as mentors; however, mentorship implies sharing knowledge and expertise with someone less experienced and less knowledgeable. Having your own wellness product line does not qualify you to dispense health or wellness advice. That is a business decision, not a decision of expertise. Nor does it explain the inclusion of astrologers, people pushing pseudoscience, and promoting their wellness products. It is possible to consider health holistically and not include pseudoscience.
Products
Like any good health and wellness company, Mbg offers their own line of health and wellness products. Their product line features coffee, a few lotions, serums, and supplements. Lots and lots of supplements. Much of the content created and reviewed by the aforementioned experts leads you straight to Mbg's store.
For example, let's say you're interested in brain health. You go to Mbg's website and search “brain health.” They have a lot of content on that! Many, if not most, articles fall into the category of “eat this, avoid that for optimal brain health” with titles like
- “The Best (& Worst) Foods For Brain Health, From Experts"
- “5 Dementia-Preventing Brain Longevity Tips For People In Their 40s”
- “A Neurophysiologist Takes These Supplements Daily For Brain Health.”
There are many, many, many more, but you get the idea.
Like most articles, there is an author, and occasionally, next to the author is the name of the person in charge of the “expert review” of the article. This is where those aforementioned experts come in. Many of them are responsible for expert review. Many of them may even be writing content for the site. There is lots of content to choose from, often overseen, mentored, or created by their panel of experts.
Why is there so much content? You could be forgiven for thinking that it's because they are or want to be seen as thought leaders in health and wellness. But the reality is that in digging into the articles cited above, all discuss supplements that Mbg sells. Many can be summarized as follows: “Take a brain-boosting supplement!" In many of the listicles (articles solely consisting of lists), you'll often find that the first recommendation is to take some sort of brain supplement. Mbg just so happens to have plenty on offer: two nootropics (to improve your cognition and help you think fast”), three if you count coffee, and omega-3. (You will find nootropics and omega-3 are discussed in each of those “brain health” articles.)
Brain health is just one example of how Mbg markets their products. If you search Mbg's website for other types of health advice, you will find that this is standard for different areas of health too: gut health, muscle health, women's health, etc.
Conclusion
Mbg's formula has been quite successful: churn out content that's received the stamp of approval from a panel of experts with dubious expertise and sell a corresponding product. Throw in a dose of science-washing to cover the pseudoscience, and you will have the makings of a successful health and wellness company. Mbg isn't the only company that uses this formula, but it is one of the most successful.
It's important for you, the consumer, to understand what is prettily packaged to make you feel like you're making a science-backed decision for your health and well-being that is likely anything but. Mixing facts with a high degree of pseudoscience can make it particularly difficult to spot a grift, but a grift it is nonetheless.
[1] For comparison, our website, the American Council on Science and Health, is rated as “highly credible.”
[2] Disclaimer - she has no medical background whatsoever. Please don't put anything on, in, or near your vulva or vagina that a random person sells you on the internet.
Katie Suleta, DHSc, MPH
Katie Suleta is a regional director of research in graduate medical education for HCA Healthcare. Her background is in public health, health informatics, and infectious diseases. She has an MPH from DePaul University, an MS in Health Informatics from Boston University, and has completed her Doctorate of Health Sciences at George Washington University.
