Inside the female ‘fat’ capital of Britain with giant donut swings, TikTok takeaways and junk food Mecca city centre
THE aroma of melting chocolate regularly fills Rachel Treen’s house leaving her craving a bar of Dairy Milk.
But she’s not an avid baker, no, the 26-year-old lives in Bourneville, Birmingham, just a stone’s throw away from the world-famous Cadbury chocolate factory.
While it may sound like the dream location for budding Willy Wonkas, for Rachel, and the thousands of women struggling with their weight in the West Midlands, it is a nightmare.
The Midlands - famous for Shakespeare, Land Rovers and Ozzy Osbourne - is now the only place in the UK where the number of obese women outnumber overweight men.
Startingly, some women have blamed their huge intake of junk food on their lack of willpower during their menstrual cycles or the menopause.
Others have simply fallen to the temptation of the clever marketing ploys aimed directly at women.
At the world’s largest Greggs cafe in Birmingham - located in the world’s largest Primark no less - there is a giant pink donut selfie swing that encourages women to buy a sweet treat and then snap a picture of themselves eating it.
Rows of takeaways lure women in with giant floral window displays, pink neon signs and dirt cheap BOGOF offers.
“Everything has been made too easy for us women,” one local says. “The Midlands is now a junk food mecca and it’s hard to resist when everything is so cheap, easy and delicious.”
Rachel, who has always struggled with her weight, agrees.
She says: “At one point, I piled on more than six stone, although I’ve managed to lose a lot of the weight since, but it’s not easy, or easy to keep off. I had to rely on support from other women in a slimming group.
“Delivery apps made it really difficult for me. There are so many takeaways around here and you can order food from your phone without even realising you’ve done it – you don’t have to go down to the Chinese and stand out in the cold.
“Last night, I fancied chocolate, and my husband and I started browsing selection boxes that we could get delivered from our local corner shop on Deliveroo, before we suddenly thought ‘What are we doing?’
“You don’t need to get off your sofa to get whatever food you’re craving delivered to your hand.
“Most women I know don’t get a lot of exercise either, because they literally order everything from their phone.
"All these takeaways advertise on Facebook, they get into your algorithms and you’re bombarded with advertising from them. All you have to do is click on a button and it’s there.”
Fast food haven awash with 'viral takeaways'
New statistics show that 70 per cent of women in the West Midlands are overweight or obese, compared to 69 per cent of men.
The number is significantly higher than the East of England, where just 55 per cent of women are overweight, and London, where 57 per cent of women are considered obese or overweight.
Fast food outlets in the region have blown up on TikTok, and have seen young people travelling for miles to try them out.
In 2022, the Binley Mega Chippy, in Coventry, went viral after a fan made up a song about the chip shop – which saw people visiting from around the world – and the hashtag #Binleymegachippy receiving more than 492.5 million views.
And last year, people flocked to buy loaded jacket potatoes from ‘Spudman’ – a street potato vendor in Tamworth, Staffs who offers generous portions – where queues went on for more than two hours.
Spudman himself, dad-of-nine Ben Newman, has since been awarded the Freedom of the Borough after increasing footfall to the town.
Minnie Savage, 19, a physio student living in Birmingham, the biggest city in the region, said: “There are loads of viral food places around here – they’re definitely places that me and my friends would go to, if it was a special occasion.
"It’s always the girls who spot these places and recommend we go.”
And pal Emma Barron, 20, added: “The amount of calories in some of the food just isn’t something that gets talked about.”
University of Birmingham Student Rose Smithert agrees that viral takeaways are a problem in the West Midlands.
The 20-year-old said: “If my friends spot a food place going viral, they have to go there.
“Lots of friends from uni drove over to visit the Binley Mega Chippy, these are so massive in the moment that everyone wants to be there. They are always around this area for some reason.
“It does encourage people to eat more than they normally would, and it probably is girls who are a bit more into posting where they’ve been on social media and getting likes.”
Down the road, we visit the Dolphin fish shop – a chippy that’s been making waves on social media and has seen people willingly receiving parking fines by parking on double yellows to pick up a chippy tea.
Friday nights see the chip shop with queues out of the door, with customers waiting more than half an hour to be served.
And when we visit on Monday lunchtime, the staff are rushed off their feet with a steady stream of customers.
Council worker Paul Brown grabbed a doner kebab and chips for lunch – which set him back just £5.20 - but said he had been planning to have a sandwich.
He says: “We’ve been working hard and it’s a cold day so I don’t feel too bad about it.”In December, Birmingham city centre’s biggest draw is the Christmas. Birmingham is home to the largest Christmas market outside of Germany and Austria – and the vast majority of stalls are flogging food and drink.
Food for Insta
Dionne Denter runs dessert stand ‘Let’s get ready to crumble’ – illuminated with neon pink signs, she has a steady flow of customers eagerly buying pots of crumble and custard.
“We have a stall here every year,” she explains, “but every year we change it to reflect what is trending.
“Last year it was all about churros, but this year crumble is really big.
“We try to make the stall as Instagram-friendly as we can, because we know people want to have their picture taken – nearly everyone who buys something from us has a picture for Instagram – the vast majority of them are girls.
Her partner, Dante, who runs the market, added: “It’s easy advertising for small businesses, when the customers want to post about it.
“Birmingham is such a foodie city, it definitely draws a lot of traders here over going to other areas of the country at this time of year.”
Huge cost to the country
And while the eateries are raking in the cash, it’s been revealed that Brit’s obsession with junk food costs the country a staggering £268bn a year, including an additional £67.5billion in healthcare costs, according to a study by Surrey University.
In the last two years, several cities around the West Midlands, including Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, have introduced more than 11,00 e-bikes for hire – but when we visit, we don’t see a single one in use, and rows of bikes and electric scooters lie untouched at docking stations around the city.
Walking through the city centre, we pass a gym, doors chained and long closed down - but the Greggs and McDonalds next door are thriving.Just a few hundred feet away, on the city’s High Street, the world’s biggest Primark store is also home to the world's biggest Greggs cafe – which boasts selfie spots and a pink sprinkle donut swing for customers to take their picture on while munching on a donut.
Takeaway city
Some areas of Birmingham are among the most unhealthy in the country – Selly Oak, to the south of the city, and home to a big student population, has almost 1,000 takeaways lining its streets.
On the bustling pavements, billboards advertise huge fry ups for less than a fiver – and one trendy pub offers a bottomless brunch, with unlimited drinks and piled-high plates of food for just £25.
Birmingham City Council rules ban any local area in the city from having more than 10 per cent of shops as hot food takeaways – but in Selly Oak, the number of hot food takeaways make up 9.94 per cent of all businesses.
You only have to take a short walk down the road at lunchtime to see that the takeaways are doing a roaring trade, even during the day.
Local resident Israa Alwah, 40, said it’s hard to eat healthily when there are so many cheap convenient options on her doorstep.
"I live by myself, like a lot of people around here, and it can be a lot of effort to cook healthy meals for one person. Sometimes it seems easier to just buy something ready made.”
All the ways obesity can kill
Being overweight doesn’t automatically kill you.
But carrying excess fat is associated with lots of health problems.
Firstly, there’s heart disease.
Extra body fat can lead to high blood pressure and cholesterol, raising the chances of heart attacks.
Then we have type 2 diabetes.
Carrying excess weight makes your body resistant to insulin, resulting in high blood sugar levels and complications like kidney failure.
Obesity is also linked to 13 different cancers, which include:
- Adenocarcinoma of the esophagus
- Breast cancer in postmenopausal women
- Colon and rectum cancer
- Uterus cancer
- Gallbladder cancer
- Upper stomach cancer
- Kidney cancer
- Liver cancer
- Ovaries cancer
- Pancreas cancer
- Thyroid cancer
- Meningioma, a type of brain cancer
- Multiple myeloma
Sleep apnea, which disrupts breathing during sleep and can make people snore, is another risk.
Not being able to breathe properly can lead to a sudden drop in oxygen levels, which can be bad for the heart.
Being obese can also impact mental health, often leading to depression and anxiety due to stigma and discrimination.
No more burgers
Molly Kelly, 22, a nursery nurse who lives in Stirchley, less than a mile from Selly Oak, says locals would be glad to see the back of the takeaways.
“There’s been a lot of upset in the area I live in because there’s been an application to open a McDonalds – there are so many food shops already in the village, people really don’t want another one.
“You can get unhealthy take away food all over the place, and Stirchley is one of the few places round here that does have some healthier convenient options – delis and sushi. We don’t want or need more burgers.”
She adds: “I can totally understand why more women than men are obese here – I know it’s right before my period that I crave junk food, and when it’s so easily accessible, it’s difficult to resist.”
Wine & chocolate delivered to your door
Jeni O’Brien, who works in the city, agrees.
“It’s really hard for a lot of women to use their will power, especially if they’re facing PMS, or worse, menopausal symptoms.
"You’re shattered, craving junk and there are so many unhealthy foods targeted at women,” she says.
“Wine and chocolate can be delivered to your house at the press of a button, and there is no shortage of places to deliver them round here.
“Everything has been made a little bit too easy for us.”
A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council said: “Selly Oak Local Centre, according to the latest monitoring report for 2024, has increased its share of hot food takeaways to bring the proportion of hot food takeaways to 9.94%, which is extremely close to the 10% limit.
"Proposals for hot food takeaways would now have to take this into consideration.
“Birmingham City Council’s Public Health division is committed to creating a healthier city, and tackling obesity plays a key role in this ambition.
"We have a number of measures in place, including weight management services for overweight adults, as well as citizens with disabilities.”
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