University of Brighton fine Art (Painting) submission

When one’s ego is more important than recognising privilege

Apologies for the delay of this article this week! I was getting my massive dragon tattoo added to yesterday and I just had 0 energy to write anything. But better late than never…

Last week, the neurodivergent internet was set ablaze following fitness influencer, Joe Wicks, was featured on a podcast blaming the soaring numbers of children getting ADHD diagnoses on bad diet. He followed it up with the video below saying he misspoke. He said that everyone is affected by diet (true), that ADHD symptoms could be impacted by diet (also true) and that many children are being ‘misdiagnosed’ as ADHD when it could be diet-related instead (the debated issue).

It wasn’t the worst criticism of neurodivergence I’ve ever heard, but I was perturbed by it because Wicks is in a position of power and influence, and such people shape the social narrative of what we accept is true. Let me explain:

• The Dunning Kruger Effect – this refers to a bias in which people with limited competence in a field overestimate their abilities. This bias seems particularly prevalent in people in positions of power and influence. It’s as if, by virtue of being senior, they believe they are also an expert in other fields. Joe Wicks is indeed a leader in health and fitness, but I imagine the medical professionals who diagnose children with ADHD were not too impressed being sideswiped by a celebrity who isn’t medically qualified.

• Perpetuating ableist myths – reducing ADHD to diet is a reductionist idea from at least as far back when I was in school in the 1990s. ADHD was posited as the misdiagnosis of poorly behaved white cis boys who ate too many sweets and had bad parents. A person of influence repeating this old myth risks disproportionately feeding into the growing skeptical social narrative around neurodivergence, which further risks discrediting children and adults seeking help for the disabling aspects of their conditions.

• Unaccountable. To be fair on Wicks, he did apologise a few times in the video. However, in the end he stuck to his guns that he knows more than ADHD medical professionals and ended with a ‘sorry if you’ve been upset or offended.’ This is a pseudo-apology common in politics and public relations, which puts the fault on the other person and relinquishes oneself of accountability. When a powerful person refuses to take accountability for negatively impacting vulnerable group, this further marginalises that community – and encourages others to do the same.

Personally, I rolled my eyes at the Joe Wick podcast comment, as opposed to being mortally offended. What annoyed me was the video where he seemed more hurt at losing followers than recognising the unintended impact he may have had on the neurodivergent community. Power and influence creates a level of privilege that blinds people to the suffering of others, which makes it imperative that we keep holding people like Wicks to account for their behaviour, because what might seem like tiny social infractions to them can have catastrophic consequences for those they impact.