“To say 7 out of 10 Hampshire Police officers are overweight or even obese is unfair, inaccurate and does nothing to improve the morale of our hard working members. This data has come from a health screening project and is based on 500 out of 6,000 officers and staff who volunteered to take part.

“Might I suggest those colleagues who do not have potential concerns about their fitness or weight would not have been first in the queue to volunteer for the study - therefore the data may be skewed?

“Also, when you look at the data, in terms of body fat percentage rather than BMI, only 18% of officers who were screened came out as “obese”, showing that there is a lot of functional lean body mass (muscle) out there in the constabulary. So these media headlines are nonsense and should be firmly challenged.

“Yes, policing, as with society, will have those deemed “overweight” when compared to national average. But officers have to pass an annual fitness test so always have a level of health and fitness they need to maintain – which as we know can be tricky with the difficulties of shift work.

"And we should be supporting those colleagues who have issues in these areas – rather than shaming them in this way.”