Health minister and Broxtowe MP Anna Soubry has told a national newspaper that the overweight people in her constituency are normally poor.
The controversial comments, made in an interview to the Daily Telegraph, came as Ms Soubry warned food manufacturers to cut the amount of fat, sugar and salt in their products or fact the prospect of legislation to make their food healthier.
She said: "When I go to my constituency, in fact when I walk around, you can almost now tell somebody's background by their weight.
"Obviously, not everybody who is overweight comes from deprived backgrounds but that's where the propensity lies."
She added that it was "heartbreaking" that some of the most deprived people were not getting the right nutrition, but that it was mainly down to an abundance of bad food.
Junk food can be cheap, she said, leading many parents to believe it is the only way to feed their children.
She also drew on her experiences in Nottingham to back up fears that many children weren't getting a proper breakfast.
"Where I am in Nottingham, there is a Sainsbury's and you see children going in there buying take away food, a sandwich, but more likely a packet of crisps, a fizzy drink, and that's their breakfast."
She added that when she was at school, the poorer children were "skinny runts" - but that now the opposite was true.
