They would be described as "the skinny runts" because they were not getting the right food, she added.
"When I go to my constituency, in fact when I walk around, you can almost now tell somebody's background by their weight," Soubry said. "Obviously, not everybody who is overweight comes from deprived backgrounds but that's where the propensity lies."
The Child Poverty Action Group, a British charity working to alleviate poverty and social exclusion, however said cuts in government support for the low paid and unemployed would make obesity worse.
