A special fries, döner kebab or a pizza with extra cheese? Walk to the Coehoornplein and you have a lot of choice from places where you get a quick bite. Research by KRO-NCRV’s Pointer showed that the number of unhealthy points of sale increased enormously throughout the Netherlands over the past ten years. What about in Den Bosch?

In total, the Netherlands added a thousand unhealthy points of sale between 2011 and 2021. Think of fast food chains, pizzerias or cafeterias. If you add ice cream parlors and grill rooms to that, the range of unhealthy outlets even increased by three thousand. In the Randstad in particular, in the past ten years, a big opening of a fast food place.

More unhealthy points of sale in Den Bosch

Ten years ago, Den Bosch had 117 points of sale where you could get a quick bite or candy. There are now 152 places.

Doubling in other cities

In Den Bosch the number of unhealthy points of sale may be, but it is not that bad compared to other cities. For example, the number in Almere has doubled in ten years. The supply in Amsterdam also increased considerably (45.2 percent). In addition, Rotterdammers were given much more choice because of a high increase (43.3 percent).

Unhealthy outlets

When did Pointer label a place an “unhealthy outlet”? They say about this: “That is the first question we want to have in order to be able to perform our data analysis. We use the categories that Locatus uses and make our own classification. Which unhealthy food providers have joined? We divide the branches of Locatus into fresh shops and unhealthy. We classify fast food (already good for an increase of 1000 stores in 10 years), grill rooms, shops with confectionery and delivery and take-out tents as unhealthy.”

Do you want to see how many unhealthy points of sale your neighborhood has added? Check it out on this tool from Pointer.