Joe Wicks has said that he hopes that his new documentary will help people to open up more about parental mental health. The 36-year-old told of his parents' own struggles with mental health problems, and said that he wants to inspire others to do the same.
The new documentary is called Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood, and will be broadcast on May 16. It will see The Body Coach explore the impact of his mother’s eating disorder and severe obsessive compulsive disorder and his father’s drug addiction had on him when he was growing up.
Popular documentary maker Louis Theroux produced the programme. Theroux has previously spoken how Wicks' fitness programmes were a lifeline during the Coronavirus lockdowns.
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Wicks has grown a huge following online, becoming one of the most followed fitness accounts on Youtube and Instagram. His following grew massively during the Coronavirus Pandemic when he broadcast livestreams called "PE with Joe".
He has since landed his own Channel 4 programme The Body Coach. Now, Wicks wants to look at people's mental health as well as physical health.
Wicks told the Radio Times: “After PE with Joe ended, I realised I hadn’t just helped people’s physical health, but their mental health, too. I wanted to keep that conversation going.
“As a young kid, I didn’t realise my parents had mental health issues. I just thought my dad was a drug addict and my mum loved cleaning.
“But I was aware I had this ability to share my story, and that hopefully it would inspire people.”
The specialist in nutrition and fitness said that exercise was a way for him to de-stress as a child. It would also provide an escape from the atmosphere at home.
He said: “If I hadn’t exercised, I would have been a nightmare. No one would have been able to control me. PE was the one subject I looked forward to because it helped me focus.”
The fitness guru also said that he has not had very much therapy himself, apart from some family sessions with counsellor as a child. He revealed that the documentary is the most he has looked into his past.
In the documentary, Wicks learns from his own experiences being kept in the dark about his parents' struggles. He now hopes that children can be kept more informed of mental health struggles that their parents might be going through.
He said: “Millions of parents are experiencing mental health issues, particularly after lockdown.
“They’re bottling it up and trying to be brave and happy, but inside they’re probably crumbling. When the parents pull away, the children become withdrawn.”
He added: “That’s powerful. But it’s also hard, because of the stigma. You’re scared that your children might get taken away from you, or that people might make fun of them.
“So it’s hard to say ‘Just talk about it’, because normally you keep it from your friends, your colleagues, your boss.”
The documentary will air on BBC One on May 16 at 9pm. It will also explore how exercise, diet and sleep can help mental health.
The full interview can be found in this week’s Radio Times magazine.
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