The fat man in a yellow anorak was taking a rest, leaning his considerable bulk against a metal post in the hazy wintry sunshine in Hull city centre yesterday afternoon. He said he was too busy to speak.
Moments later he and his equally corpulent friend strolled into the Goldenfry fish and chip shop and he emerged clutching a polystyrene tray containing a large portion of chips, pie and peas, while she had chips and something contained in a bread roll. The smell of chip fat drifted in the wind.
Gail Clappison, the manager of the fish and chip shop, said she hadn't noticed that her customers were particularly overweight. "It is normally students who come in here, rather than fat people," she said.
"I haven't noticed that people are especially big. It is ridiculous to say that Hull is the fattest city."
Statistics compiled by data analysts Experian rank the deputy prime minister John Prescott's constituency as the worst area in Britain for obesity, using hospital admission records to find the highest concentration of Type 2 diabetes - seen as a key indicator of obesity.
The survey links being overweight to working class areas and low self-esteem; the majority of the worst 10 areas were in the north of England. The least obese area was Kingston upon Thames.
An Experian spokesman said because rich people had better education about health issues and more money they would choose to eat lower fat and organic products.
At The Plaice fish and chip shop in Hull (chip butty £1; Spam fritter in bun £1.60) Ian Cunningham was finishing a late lunch of fish, chips and peas. "Oh yes, there are a lot of fat people around here," he nodded. "I have begun to notice that kids are getting fatter than when I was growing up, but then again, I didn't have computer games like they do now."
He said he had lived in Leeds and Manchester and "would not have said that Hull was worse than anywhere else".
Gail Halliday, proprietor of The Plaice, said they get through a 13st (82.5kg) bag of potatoes every day. A sticker on the shop window reads: "Love chips, dig potatoes."
"I have noticed that the kids are getting bigger nowadays," she said. "We have tried to put salad on the menu, but it just doesn't sell. People who come in here know what they want and it's not salad."
A shop assistant in a nearby health food shop was scathing about her city. "Personally, I think it is a very unhealthy place," she said. "You only have to look around the place to see that there are rather a lot of fat people.
"Basically, they come in here wanting to slim down, but when you say you must follow a low fat diet and exercise, they do not want to know. Often they just want to stay eating the same things and doing no exercise - all they want is a miracle cure. There are a lot of fast food places and it is becoming more noticeable that there are more obese people around."
At the tourist information centre there was a sense of disbelief among staff that Hull was the fattest place in the UK. The centre sells T-shirts proclaiming: "It's never dull in Hull" (£7.99, available in all colours and sizes, including extra large).
Bryn Oliver, who works at a gym, was running through the city centre in a grey sweatshirt with instructor printed on the back.
"I do not necessarily think that Hull is the fattest place in the UK," he said.
"Not from the amount of people who come through the gyms - obviously there are a lot of healthy people around as well, otherwise there wouldn't be the demand. I would reckon that there are between eight and 10 gyms in Hull."
He did not think the survey did anyone any good. "Obviously, if it was so bad in Hull then the gyms would go out of business," he added.
