RAPID RESPONSE: Joe Wicks' Killer Bar is a Diabolical Distraction

Over the past week, Joe Wicks has reached a level of discourse not seen since the early days of lockdown. The PE With Joe star has been blowing up my Instagram timeline, which is quite the feat given I mostly follow updates about Gaza. The newsworthy story? He has created his own protein bar called The Killer Bar. As well as containing 19g of protein and 27 vitamins and minerals, the bar supposedly has over 200 ‘health and nutritional’ benefits.

But, you are not, under any circumstances, to actually eat the bar. Because it will kill you. 

This was the flimsy premise behind last night’s Channel 4 documentary Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill (diabolical). The fitness mogul has created the ‘UK’s most dangerous health bar’ to ‘highlight the potentially harmful ingredients permitted by food regulators to be sold on our shelves’. Joe is selflessly on a quest to raise the alarm to the UK government on the dangers of ultra-processed food – of which they are already acutely aware. No matter! Now, because Joe is not a Science Guy, he needs to enlist one to add credibility and legitimacy to this ostentatious stunt. And who else could he ask but top op, Chris van Tulleken. 

The programme followed Joe as he developed The Killer Bar – replete with ‘notorious’ ingredients linked to cancer, stroke, diarrhoea, and early death. Never mind that Israel is the single biggest cause of death in children this year. But go off Joe, my guy. You’re doing great. 

The show – which is pitched somewhere between Breaking Bad and softcore porn (with Joe seductively nibbling BBQ Hula Hoops off each of his fingers in succession) – began with Joe talking about his penchant for ‘junk food’. He knows it’s bad for him, but he can’t help himself. He then describes being caught in a pattern of binging and restricting these foods; Jaffa Cake anyone?

Joe then has to tee up why exactly he’s going after the food industry. ‘Diet is killing people’ he says. ‘Isn’t it the government’s job to protect the health of the nation?’. This is the point that he recruits van Tulleken, in a R&D kitchen stylised as…a meth lab? Our boys systematically go through a laundry list of ingredients and foods and link them to various diseases.