By Ismail Khwaja

Despite calls to prevent the UK's growing obesity crisis, the number of fast food outlets across Kent has risen sharply.

In 2010, there were a total of 655 but that has gone up to 775 today.

Medway has also followed the same trend, with 165 fast food outlets now, compared to 135 eight years ago.

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It comes at a time when the latest NHS figures revealed almost 4% of Year Six children are severely obese in the county, which is up from 3.5% five years ago and just below the national figure of 4.2% - a record high.

Medway director of public health, James Williams, said: “To make a direct link between fast food outlets and obesity is probably not the way I’d term it because that would be too simplistic.

“Fast food outlets on their own are not the problem; it’s if you’re eating in there every day.

"It’s very reasonable to say if you eat fast food all of the time, you’re going to take on board lots of excess calories.

“It has to be about a balance. I don’t want to demonise fast food outlets.

"What I do want to do is ensure people get the balance and actually it is about our individual responsibility, as much as it is about the environment that we live in, the opportunity that we have got to go into a fast food outlet and buy a meal that may or may not be convenient at that time.”

The issue of obesity is even worse in Medway where 4.3% of 10 and 11 year-olds are classed as severely overweight and was recently labelled as "one of the greatest public health crises".

Mr Williams insists there are a variety of interventions and programmes in place to tackle this.

“We do think we’re doing quite a lot at this moment in time, but actually we’ve got to engage with our community," he said.

“We’re not the nanny-state, we’re not going to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do, but we will guide them in relation to how they can reduce let’s say the amount of calories, particularly those that they intake from sugar.

“We’ve got a very embedded personal health and social education programme within our schools, we’ve got a dedicated schools team, we provide free training programmes and weight management courses.

“We provide free swimming for the under 16s, we’ve got a significant programme across all of the schools in Medway.

“So we’re working with our caterers to increase school meal uptake because we recognise that in some causes if children are bringing in lunch boxes that may or may not contain the right balance of nutrients that we’re looking for in a healthy diet, then we can do something about that by working centrally through our schools.

“Over 90% percent of our businesses have a healthy hygiene award, so our inspectors go out there and inspect these buildings.

“At the same time we engage with them and we talk about what they’re doing and how they can improve the quality of the food.”

There are 50 outlets per 100,000 people in Kent, which is an additional five from 2010.

Statistics show Medway has a rate of 59, which is an extra eight per 100,000 people.

Some residents in The Towns expressed their concerns about the amount of fast food outlets.

Colin Clampin, 48, from Rainham, said: “It’s just not necessary. It’s just the same takeaways up and down the high street – multiple kebab shops, multiple Chinese.

"It’s just unhealthy really.”

Jennifer Smart, 66, from Gillingham, said: “I think we’re becoming a takeaway society. I don’t think there are enough good shops.

"Too many takeaways and children and obesity.”

Pauline Fisher, 65, Gillingham, added: “There are definitely too many takeaways; it’s just becoming an absolute nuisance.”

Back in July 2014, Medway Council’s Cabinet approved new guidance to be used when determining planning applications for fast-food outlets in the area.

The guidance recommends new fast food outlets should not open between noon and 2pm within 400m of a secondary school, or between 3pm and 5pm within 400m of a primary or secondary school.

"I think we're becoming a takeaway society... I don't think there are enough good shops - Jennifer Smart

Mr Williams believes the implementation of this has been “extremely successful”.

He added: “We know since the introduction of them, we’ve challenged successfully 21 applications.

“We think that’s helped us to create an environment within Medway that people who want to open up fast food outlets and they’re legitimate businesses, but what we do want to do is to ensure we reduce the number of opportunities for people to potentially expose our children and other vulnerable groups to the temptation to fast food that may or may not be giving them excess calories.”

In a statement, Kent County Council said: “While there is a correlation between the number of a takeaways in an area and levels of obesity, diet is just one factor in this highly complex issue.

“We work closely with district councils across the county and would certainly encourage their planners to carefully consider new applications, especially when it is near a school.

“However, simply focussing on the number of takeaways is not the one-hit solution which is why we support the 'One You' campaign in Kent because it reinforces the work already underway in the county to encourage people to reappraise their lifestyle choices, think carefully about their diet and the amount of daily physical activity they do, to put themselves first and do something about their own health.

“It reminds people that it’s never too late to improve their health - making small lifestyle changes such as eating well, drinking less alcohol, quitting smoking or being more active can double your chances of being healthy at 70 and beyond.

“We want people to put themselves first and do something about their own health before it’s too late.”