Joe Wicks says junk food causes ADHD

Lots of defensive people on this thread 👀

No, my daughter has though. It's been a mission since primary school were not supportive and secondary has been useless. She's doing a lot better on meds thankfully. Also having an ASD assessment currently. We had to pay private.

Which is why I find what he said so offensive. It's a hard job advocating for your child, especially when it involves fighting for "reasonable adjustments" and support. For us we wanted to get her diagnosed before GCSES. Shortage of meds was a pain too

I did. I also much prefer to receive official guidance from ADHDUK or registered nutritionists than a celebrity who is now fear mongering about sugar without evidence. It's shown that ADHD numbers are increasing due to awareness, less stigma and adults now being recognised as having it (since 2008). This is the same celebrity who was flashing his pubes around on Instagram only a couple of months ago, I struggle to take him seriously.

Junk food exacerbates ADHD but it doesn't cause it.

More than agree. I didn’t realise until recently some doctors query whether adhd actually exists. There is no clear diagnostic, only from observation of behaviour. There was a big feature about it in the paper recently. (FWIW I think there is definitely something, they don’t understand it very well so it could easily be a bit different from current thinking, but I also think it’s important especially in medicine that doctors can have these dissenting views even when controversial. I draw the line at batshit like anti vaxxers though)

Or maybe some of us have been aware of him and his will do anything to stay in the limelight for some years now.

Always a whiff of not so quiet desperation about him. Changes area of expertise every time he slips off the radar, makes ridiculous generalisations, etc.

But, tbf, it's his attitude to women and their bodies that's particularly repulsive.

Have you been assessed or gone through it? It’s quite an effort here; we saw a pscyhologist for a year and would have had to then be referred to a paed and they assess, I had no idea. We haven’t done that for now as we don’t want to try medication yet for our son as he’s managing (us less so!) and can’t see much other point of it, I don’t feel the psychologist made a big impact and cost $$$$$$$. If I didn’t think I’d pursue medication I just wouldn’t bother going through it, we will in a year or two when we think it’s time for that. So no criticism of people not getting assessed.

Which people?

People here?

My suspicion is that these very tame comments from JW touch a nerve with parents who feed their children junk food and really don't like the thought that this may unduly affect their behaviour and exacerbate (not cause) ADHD symptoms. They lash out at the person pointing out an uncomfortable truth rather than having an introspective moment to see if low hanging fruit may have a positive impact.

No. Saying ‘every child‘ is goady and similar comments have been deleted on here before for saying just that. Saying diagnosis can be stemmed back to diet is simply false.

He’s talking nonsense and ADHD UK have rightly responded to tell him as much.

He’s as thick as mince.

But he also says he's not got a diagnosis. If he thinks he has ADHD then he should be assessed and then make judgements. Otherwise he's just a twat

Thank you for this comment!

Indeed.

Seems to be lost on some on this thread.

A mirror held up to what?

ADHD is not caused by food anymore than autism is or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

@PeaceOnThePorch I don't think he was being literal and I forgive him for his imprecise language. I think "every child" doesn't literally mean all children, its a figure of speech meaning an increasingly high percentage. The only thing I think you could really pick him up on is the suggestion that ADHD is over diagnosed. But many doctors agree with that.

I kind of think it can’t help! Wouldn’t say it’s the sole cause in all cases but sugar, e numbers etc definitely make it so much worse! It’s very apparent in my nephew and his friends.

Yep.

I don’t have an issue with a lot of what he says. Healthy diets with less UPFs are beneficial and should be encouraged.

However this part is problematic.

‘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.’

Every child is not being diagnosed with ADHD and that statement is goady. And ADHD diagnosis can not be stemmed back to diet as diet neither causes nor cures ADHD. He is talking nonsense.

I don’t have children or any other relatives/friends with ADHD, so no mirror being held up here. It just annoys me when people with a platform who are not qualified to talk about a subject like this, choose to do so.

Sugar definitely exacerbates it ime, cause it - no.

All these posters that are insulting JW, just calm down, stop taking the OPs bad summary of the article as literal, and read what he actually says. He briefly touches on ADHD but most of his words are about energy, concentration and energy. I realise ADHD is emotive, but don't just pile on JW without actually reading what he actually said.

I hate to say it, but I suspect some of the offense being taken here is because people don't really like a mirror being held up.

Nice example of the concept that correlation does not equate causation

Hmmm I've carefully read the Daily Mail article and he doesn't actually say junk food "causes" ADHD although the paper are trying to word it that way - he is saying his ADHD behaviour as a child was influenced by the food he was eating, which I think isn't an unreasonable statement to make.
Beware the Daily Mail twisting words to suit.

I honestly don't think he should have waded into this if all it was going to do was flag up his ignorance. Sadly many people seem to be under the impression that ADHD is basically kids being hyper, misbehaving and not listening in class. It is much more complex than this. Such an outdated, ignorant, lazy trope.

Joe Wicks has his own area of expertise and should probably stick with that.

It’s also very interesting that his mum had ocd and anxiety. Maybe Joe Wicks should look into the links between those things and ND, instead of talking rubbish about ADHD stemming back to food.

He has a few kids, let’s hope his words don’t come back to bite him when ADHD and other ND tends to run in families.