Gillian McKeith Parents: Meet Robert McKeith

Gillian McKeith is a Scottish television personality and writer. Gillian McKeith was born and raised on a council estate in Perth, Scotland. Her father, Robert, worked in a shipyard, and her mother worked in an office.

She has said that she was raised eating the junk food she now advises against: “We all know the kind of food I grew up with—a typical Scottish diet. We’d have meat three times a day. I certainly never ate a mango, and had no idea what macrobiotic meant.” Her father was a heavy smoker who died of oesophagal cancer in 2005.

Gillian McKeith graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in linguistics in 1981 before moving to the United States, where she worked in marketing and international business. She earned an MA in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984.

Gillian McKeith is well-known for her promotion of various pseudoscientific health and nutrition theories. She previously hosted Channel 4’s You Are What You Eat (2004-2006), Granada Television’s Dr Gillian McKeith’s Feel Fab Forever (2009-2010), and the W Network’s Eat Yourself Sexy (2010).