Fitness coach Joe Wicks has disclosed that his four children have never eaten at McDonald's, and that he himself has avoided the fast-food chain for the past decade. The 40-year-old, known as the Body Coach, made the revelation while promoting his new cookbook, Healthy Start, in an interview with Cathy Newman on Times Radio.
Last McDonald's visit was in 2015 with wife Rosie
Wicks explained that his last trip to McDonald's was in 2015, on the night he met his wife Rosie. '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. So that was the last time we had McDonald's,' he said.
Before that, Wicks said he was a regular customer. 'I haven't had McDonald's, and I used to love like a sausage and egg McMuffin in the mornings. It was my thing. So I would go 7am before my boot camp, and I'd have a sausage egg McMuffin with a hash brown,' he recalled.
Children's diet and childhood influences
Wicks and his wife Rosie have four children: Indigo, eight, Marley, seven, Leni, three, and Dusty, two. He stated plainly: 'They've never had McDonald's.'
His avoidance of fast food for his kids may be linked to his own upbringing, which he has previously described as full of 'ultra-processed food'. In an interview with RTE, he said: 'I had a very unhealthy diet as a child. Any money that came through the door was not going on healthy protein sources and vegetables – it just wasn't. 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't have the skills and knowledge to cook – it was not in her vocabulary.'
New cookbook and snacking advice
Wicks now says he struggles to eat those foods 'in moderation'. His new cookbook, Healthy Start, focuses on healthy meals for the whole family, offering 'nourishing, easy and enjoyable' recipes, according to him.
He also shared his views on children snacking between meals. He explained that he has reservations about offering 'lots of snacks' to young children. '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,' he advised.
Wicks added that it's no problem if children refuse food at mealtimes, as parents can simply reheat the food later when the child is hungry.
