Pink donut selfie swings, TikTok takeaways & chocolate...

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.

Image Credit: The Sun [Fast food outlets and restaurants in Selly Oak, Birmingham.]

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.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman in striped dress.]

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.

Image Credit: The Sun [Customers queueing outside Binley Mega Chippy.]

“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?’.

Image Credit: The Sun [A long queue of people waiting to buy jacket potatoes from a food stall.]

“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.”.

Image Credit: The Sun [Two Birmingham University physiotherapy students stand on a city street.]

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.

Image Credit: The Sun [Man holding fish and chips outside a fish bar.]

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.”.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman serving crumble at a Christmas market.]

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.

Image Credit: The Sun [Empty storefronts with "Retail & Leisure Opportunity" signage and details of available space.]

“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.