![\"Wicks](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024e633-614.jpg\"\/)
\nWicks with his wife, Rosie, and their four children (Mike English\/PA)<\/p>\n
A stark contrast to what you see on Instagram today, Joe Wicks admits to having a “very unhealthy diet as a child”.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, the TV fitness coach and cookbook author\u2019s social media is full of healthy recipes using whole ingredients \u2013 often cooking alongside his four children: Indie, eight, Marley, six, Leni, three, and Dusty, two.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t always like that. “I had a very unhealthy diet as a child,” says Wicks, 40, who guesses around 90% of it involved ultra-processed food.<\/p>\n
“I grew up in a low-income family on benefits, and my dad was an addict. Any money that came through the door was not going on healthy protein sources and vegetables \u2013 it just wasn\u2019t. So I lived off ultra-processed food and frozen dinners. My mum was 15 when she was kicked out of school and left home; she didn\u2019t have the skills and knowledge to cook \u2013 it was not in her vocabulary.”<\/p>\n
\nWicks with his wife, Rosie, and their four children (Mike English\/PA)<\/p>\n
This meant Wicks\u2019 early exposure to food was “a lot of sugar, a lot of ultra-processed food” \u2013 and he says that\u2019s affected him today: “When I do consume it 1787807658, I can\u2019t eat it in moderation.”<\/p>\n
Wicks learned how to cook in his 20s, falling in love with healthy food and exercise \u2013 he went on to set up his social media channels as The Body Coach, gaining widespread acclaim during the Covid pandemic for his P.E. with Joe videos, raising money for the NHS and later being made an MBE for his charity efforts.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s a father, he\u2019s increasingly concerned about how ultra-processed foods are targeted at kids \u2013 and how it might affect young people\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re taught to reward children with sugar,” he notes. “It\u2019s foods that are designed to be hyper-addictive, hyper-tasty. They have a scientifically engineered bliss point where they mix the perfect amount of salt, fat and sugar, so when you eat a cookie, or a doughnut, or a brownie \u2013 you can\u2019t put it down, you want to eat the whole packet.<\/p>\n
“Then you realise: that\u2019s what we\u2019re up against, because not many people can consume these foods in moderation.”<\/p>\n
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And for Wicks, these ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are “everywhere you go” when you have children: “They\u2019re in lunch boxes, they\u2019re on planes, they\u2019re at soft plays, they\u2019re at farms,” which can result in a “tug-of-war” between the parent wanting to give their kids healthy food, and their children demanding sweets.<\/p>\n
He explored UPFs even further in last year in the Channel 4 documentary, Joe Wicks: Licensed To Kill, made with scientist Dr Chris van Tulleken (author of Ultra-Processed People, a book Wicks credits with changing his outlook).<\/p>\n
He admits that it\u2019s “a tough message to hear that the food we\u2019re consuming is affecting our health, our mental health, increasing the risk of type two diabetes, obesity and all the diet-related diseases around that”.<\/p>\n
In the lead-up to the documentary, Wicks remembers getting “hammered” on social media, “From fitness influencers, nutritionists, dietitians, doctors”, who he says were unhappy with the links he was making between UPFs and physical and mental health.<\/p>\n
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The experience obviously shook Wicks, who says: “I was upset. I was emotional. I was sensitive, and it proper knocked my confidence, thinking: \u2018Why am I putting myself out there? Why did I do this documentary? Why did I share this?<\/p>\n
“I had to wait until the dust settled to accept that it got more people watching, it got more people talking about UPFs and the ingredients, and looking at the back of the product.”<\/p>\n
Plus, he suggests that the next five to 10 years will bring even more research backing up his claims about UPFs, but acknowledges it\u2019s hard for families \u2013 particularly those on low incomes \u2013 to eat healthily.<\/p>\n
While the documentary called on the government for a response to whether it could put health warnings on certain foods, Wicks calls it “disheartening” that he never heard anything back. And we won\u2019t catch Wicks doing a follow-up documentary any time soon (“absolutely not”, he says firmly), but he\u2019s still going to be fighting UPFs in other ways.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m not going to spend my life doing documentaries and putting myself in the fire \u2013 I can just be part of the solution,” he explains, whether that\u2019s sharing his recipes on social media, encouraging people to think more about their food, and doing what he does best: getting people moving. “I\u2019m constantly trying to use my energy in positive ways that are making an impact in that moment, as opposed to trying to convince the government to change policy.”<\/p>\n
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Wicks, who lives in Surrey with his four kids and wife Rosie, is releasing his 14th cookbook, Healthy Start, which focuses on nutritious recipes for the whole family, with recipes and tips for how to get kids involved in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
None of Wicks\u2019 kids are fussy eaters, which he credits to exposing them to all kinds of food from early on. “I always remember when I started weaning Indie, my first girl, people would be saying, \u2018Wait until she\u2019s three, wait until she hits four \u2013 it all changes\u2019.<\/p>\n
“I was always waiting for this moment where my kids would stop eating healthy food, but I realised actually, if you\u2019re consistent and the only thing on the table is healthy food, then you don\u2019t have that issue. They do get to enjoy treats and they do get to enjoy ultra-processed foods, but it\u2019s not an everyday occurrence: it\u2019s not in the house all the time.”<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty of bold flavours and variety in his new cookbook, with recipes for curries, stir-fries, colourful tray bakes and more \u2013 a far cry from the beige, tasteless dishes that are always on kids\u2019 menus.<\/p>\n
Wicks has a firm “one family, one recipe” rule \u2013 meaning you won\u2019t see him whipping up an alternative meal to cater for different children. If one of his kids doesn\u2019t like dinner, he won\u2019t offer an alternative \u2013 he\u2019ll often put it in the fridge, tell them to play for an hour, and come back to it when they\u2019re hungry.<\/p>\n
He is also trying to teach them “how foods make you feel”, he says. “I never say \u2018good food\u2019, \u2018bad food\u2019, I don\u2019t say junk food. I say, \u2018This is whole food\u2019, \u2018This is a processed food\u2019 \u2013 some things make you feel really good and energised, and you\u2019re going to feel great. Other things are going to make you feel tired and sleepy and bloated, and it\u2019s going to bring your mood down.<\/p>\n
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“I let them choose \u2013 I\u2019m not someone who\u2019s saying, \u2018You can\u2019t have these things\u2019. If we\u2019re out and about and it\u2019s a weekend, we\u2019ll have a pudding and an ice cream, or if we\u2019re at the park, we might grab a lolly.<\/p>\n
“But I don\u2019t have cupboards full of this stuff because if I did, guess what? I\u2019d be eating it every day, and they\u2019d be eating it every day. And that\u2019s the simple fact of it.”<\/p>\n
Cooking with his kids \u2013 and encouraging others to do the same \u2013 is central to Wicks\u2019 mission, which he calls “the most valuable life skill you\u2019ll ever give your child”.<\/p>\n
“We know food affects our mood, and if you have a child or a teenager that just eats UPFs, doesn\u2019t want to cook, their mental health and their energy and their mood through their life will never quite be at its best. They\u2019ll never quite be optimised.<\/p>\n
“So if we get kids to love cooking, they\u2019re going to be independent, they\u2019re going to move out, they\u2019re going to cook. They\u2019re not going to be ordering food on a takeaway [app] every night. It\u2019s going to change their life.”<\/p>\n
Healthy Start by Joe Wicks is published in hardback by Leap. Photography by Mike English. Available August 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A stark contrast to what you see on Instagram today, Joe Wicks admits to having a “very unhealthy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,85,46,543],"class_list":["post-597276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}