Betting shops are the real source of the UK’s obesity epidemic, according to a health official.

It’s no secret that the UK has a lot of fat bastards – a 2014 World Health Organization study found 28% of UK adults are obese and 62% are either obese or overweight. Rachel Flowers, a director of public health in Croydon, south London, claims to have identified the root cause of this epidemic: the nation’s 9,000+ high street betting shops.

As for how Flowers identified the irrefutable flutter-fatty link, the Blackpool Gazette quoted her saying bookmakers “bleed the money out of people’s pockets,” leaving them with “less money and time to prepare good food.”

Pretty rigorous scientific methods at play there in identifying the smoking kebab, one has to admit. Sort of like those tabloid headlines detailing the billions of pounds the residents in each UK city ‘spend’ playing fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT), which, given the machines’ 97% payout rate, is exponentially higher than the money punters actually lose to the machines. But you know, math.