Joe Wicks celebrated with his proud mother on Tuesday after receiving an honorary degree from Loughborough University in Leicestershire.
The nation’s favourite work-out guru, nicknamed the Body Coach, looked delighted as he posed with his mum Raquela on his back after the presentation.
Joe recently spoke out about his childhood and said his behavioural issues at school were caused by his high-sugar diet.
Appearing on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Headliners podcast in April, Joe, 38, also controversially claimed ultraprocessed junk food may be behind the explosion in child ADHD diagnoses
Joe Wicks celebrated with his proud mother on Tuesday after receiving an honorary degree from Loughborough University in Leicestershire
Joe recently spoke out about his childhood and said his behavioural issues at school were caused by his high-sugar diet
Joe, who rose to prominence with his PE with Joe workout videos during Covid lockdowns, told the podcast: ‘Looking back now, there’s no doubt the food I was eating was directly linked to my behaviour.
‘I was never diagnosed with ADHD but I think nowadays it’s this common thing that every child seems to be being diagnosed.
‘And I think a lot of it can stem back to the diet and the foods that we’re eating.
‘So, when I think about my diet it was cereal for breakfast, concentrated juice from the milkman, Sunny Delight, Wagon Wheels, sandwiches just jam, Nutella, very little nutrients — pure sugar.’
He claimed that a reliance on junk food can lead to lack of energy and a struggle to focus in young people.
‘They’re struggling at school with focus, they’re gaining weight, and probably having really low energy crashes because these foods are just not going to give your children the energy they need to sustain a healthy day — a balanced level of energy.’
Joe has said he suffered with constant anxiety as a child while growing up with his heroin addict dad and his mum, who suffered with severed OCD.
The fitness guru lifted the lid on his troubled upbringing in his 2022 documentary Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood.
The nation’s favourite work-out guru, nicknamed the Body Coach, looked delighted as he posed with his mum Raquela on his back after the presentation
Joe has said he suffered with constant anxiety as a child while growing up with his heroin addict dad and his mum, who suffered with severed OCD, but he is now close to his mum
Raquela left him in the care of his heroin addict father Gary when he was 12 years old in order to get help for her OCD.
Joe has lauded his mother for being ‘brave’ enough to get the help she needed in the form of five months of therapy, while his older brother Nikki tried to shelter him from the daily horrors of living with their addict father.
The fitness guru explained how his mother feared he and his brothers would be taken into care if she told people about her issues.
‘I was born in 1985 and she was only 19 when she had me. There was that fear of, “if I tell people about my eating disorder or that I’m struggling, they’ll be taken away”.’
Joe recalls that he was always ‘aware’ of his father’s addiction, explaining the consequences it had on him as a child: ‘Heroin addiction is a really destructive thing.
Joe’s mother Raquela left him in the care of his heroin addict father Gary when he was 12 years old in order to get help for her OCD (pictured with his mother and brother Nikki)
‘I was just anxious all the time and scared and nervous. I acted up in school. I was disruptive, I was the naughty kid because no one stopped me and said, “What’s going on?”‘
On his mum’s battle with OCD, Joe revealed, ‘She was scrubbing the house three or four times a day, I was hoovering my bedroom twice a day. I had to show her the lines. These things weren’t normal but in my head I was like, “All mums do this.”… Every day was an argument.’
He continued, ‘I went through a lot, no one talked about it, no one was saying, “What’s going on?” So your mum and dad just didn’t want to talk about these things and that’s what the documentary is about – when can we bring the kids into the conversation?’
Joe and his wife Rosie welcomed their fourth child, son Dusty, last month.
The couple are also proud parents to daughters Indie, six, and Leni, two, and son Marley, five.