Joe Wicks says his four children have never had McDonald's

Fitness coach Joe Wicks has revealed his four children have never eaten at McDonald's, while he has not visited the restaurant in over ten years.

The 40-year-old fitness authority, widely known as The Body Coach, shared the details during an interview on Times Radio while discussing his new book, Healthy Start. Wicks explained that he avoids feeding his young children fast food as part of his broader campaign promoting home cooking with fresh ingredients.

Wicks shares four children, eight-year-old Indie, six-year-old Marley, four-year-old Leni, and two-year-old Dusty, with his wife Rosie, 36. He confirmed that none of his children have ever tried food from the fast-food chain.

Opening up about his own past habits, Wicks admitted he used to enjoy fast food before shifting to a health-focused lifestyle. "They've never had McDonald's. I haven't had McDonald's, and I used to love like a sausage and egg McMuffin in the mornings," Wicks explained. "It was my thing. So I would go 7 a.m before my boot camp, and I'd have a sausage egg McMuffin with a hash brown."

He revealed that his last visit to the restaurant occurred in 2015 on the night he met his wife Rosie. "And I was saying to my wife since I met her in 2015, I haven't been in the McDonald's because the night I met her actually we're driving back from a rave and we stopped at the 24-hour McDonald's in Wandsworth, and that was because she really wanted to have McDonald's," Wicks recalled. "So that was the last time we had McDonald's."

Parenting advice on snacking and meals

Wicks also appeared on Friday's episode of This Morning, speaking with host Cathy Newman about childhood nutrition and mealtime routines. During the television appearance, he expressed concern that too many parents rely on feeding their children snacks between scheduled meals.

"I do think another issue is people giving their children lots of snacks," Wicks told Newman. "I think we live in an environment where we're taught to sort of give snacks and this sort of in between meals all the time so constantly grazing and little children have quite small tummies. So try and avoid snacking, try to just wait."

Addressing situations where children refuse to eat meals prepared for them, Wicks advised parents to avoid creating high-pressure environments. "If they reject the food, rather than getting upset and offended and make this high stress pressure thing, just say no worries, go away for an hour and play and I'll reheat the food for you in an hour, and nine times out of ten, when hunger kicks in, they'll eat it," he advised.

Documentary controversy and fitness community backlash

Wicks has long campaigned against ultra-processed foods (UPFs), but his television projects have previously sparked controversy. Earlier this year, Wicks addressed the intense criticism he received following his Channel 4 documentary series, which debuted in October.

The television project was designed to demonstrate how ultra-processed foods packed with additives are marketed to consumers as healthy choices. During the series, Wicks unveiled what he called "the UK's most dangerous health bar." He urged viewers to buy the products without eating them, noting that profits would be donated to healthy-eating charities.

However, diet experts condemned the demonstration as a "scaremongering" stunt, while viewers accused Wicks of "demonising sugar" and "creating weird obsessions" around food.

Speaking on Emilie Lavinia's Well Enough podcast in January, Wicks admitted he felt "offended and upset" after being accused of "demonising foods and promoting eating disorders." He expressed surprise at the level of criticism directed at him by fellow industry professionals, including fitness coaches, dietitians, and nutritionists.

"I was really surprised at the amount of anger and sort of pushback from the fitness community," Wicks said on the podcast. "It was really other fitness coaches and dietitians and nutritionists really pushing back with the narrative of you're demonising foods, you're stigmatising low income families, and you're promoting eating disorders."

Wicks argued that critics took clips of his program to generate online engagement and promote their own businesses. "People take a clip, they use that to create their content, to wind people up, get engagement, get comments, and then a few days later, they'll sell, you know, their online plan to you," he stated.

The fitness coach admitted that the experience affected his confidence and forced him to re-evaluate his approach. "I'm really sort of configuring my mindset around what I can do next in that space, because I wasn't ready for the backlash. To be honest, I wasn't prepared. I did take it personally. I felt offended. I was upset by it, but I had to, just like, ride it out. But it's definitely knocked my confidence a little bit," Wicks said.

He added: "I just wasn't ready for, like, the negative pushback from it. And it just goes to show that, you know, the system and the way it's set up, it's just so normalised. People don't want to hear that we should consume less of this."