Wellesbourne boy goes viral in quest to get fit and beat bullies
A WELLESBOURNE boy is now like “a different child” according to brothers who are helping him get fit. Jacob Whitmore has become the subject of viral videos showing his journey to get fit and beat bullies.
The 10-year-old has been working with Joe and Harry Freeman, who are boxers and fitness experts and also co-founders of Boxwave, which focuses on healthy lifestyle and eating. A fundraiser to help buy fitness equipment for Jacob was set at £250, but is now sitting at over £10,500.
The brothers became aware of Jacob through his granddad, who lives nearby. After discovering Jacob was getting bullied and had quit playing football, they wanted to help.
The workout videos have got thousands of views on Youtube alone, with one video surpassing 348,000
views. Several others have had in the region of 20,000 views.
Harry said: “My brother and I were doing free live workouts across social media platforms and we had quite a lot of success through the summer. We used to get whole families involved and get some videos on
our TikTok of the whole family doing it.
“We noticed a lot of the adults were struggling with consistency. If you can build these habits at a young age, you stand a better chance of sticking into it. So we were looking at putting a kids class on.
“Jacob’s grandad lives three doors down from us. We spoke to him about a month or two ago and he
mentioned about Jacob getting bullied and not playing football anymore. We wanted to help.
“We were looking into doing some boxing and stuff with him, but then we thought we should get him on the workouts with us on our channel. We trained him for about a week and it then just went completely viral.”
There has been a distinct change in Jacob over the weeks, as Harry added: “We put a video out this week and you can just see how much he’s changed. It’s not just physically changed him, it’s mentally changed him. He’s full of confidence just like a different kid. He doesn’t play on his computer as much and he’s just full of life.
“We’ve been on it for a year saying the same message and, you know, to see it change Jacob like it has, it’s
almost sparked a national movement where hundreds and thousands of kids are messaging us and parents all
wanting to get involved. It’s what we set out a year ago to do, but seeing it take off now is amazing.
“We’ve been contacted by so many parents and we know that so many children are in Jacob’s position because they feature on our channel now.
“Jacob’s is our main journey but there are going to be lots of journeys featuring other children who need the same help and support.”
Harry pointed out that Boxwave can be a social media channel that children can positively get involved with.
He said: “Our message at the minute is kind of keeping it simple. We understand parents have mixed opinions with their kids being on social media. However, a lot of them are on it and if they’re following channels like Boxwave, we’re promoting a healthy lifestyle.”
