COPS who prefer doughnuts to diets will be put through their paces next year with the introduction of annual fitness tests.
 

The work-outs are part of a set of proposals to reform the police with all officers expected to have to pass - not just the bobbies on the beat.
 

However failure is an option as only repeated failures will result in disciplinary action and portly police officers will be given support rather than the sack.
 

Currently police officers take a fitness test before joining the force but can then go 30 years without another one.
 

New recruits will be subject to more rigorous tests once the changes are made, expected in September 2018.
 

Roy Scanes, principal officer for the Essex Police Federation, spoke out about the fitness tests when the idea was mooted as part of the Winsor II report into policing reform.
 

He said: “The federation is not against fitness tests.
“Officers in frontline roles need to be fit and able to do the job, but the tests have to be proportionate to the roles.”
 

In the Metropolitan Police more than 50 per cent of the are overweight and 20 per cent obese with a third of women overweight and 16 per cent obese, according to the report.