Sergeant Graham Gubb of Response and Operations at Police National Headquarters told Ten One police magazine: “Who on the frontline can’t tell a story about trying to arrest somebody who just won’t fit into the standard handcuffs?”

The news comes in the wake of a government report that found the country has the third highest obesity rate in the developed world, behind the US and Mexico.

One in three adults and one in ten children in New Zealand are obese, according to the country’s Ministry of Health.

New cuffs manufactured in the US will be issued to police midway through the year to “accommodate people whose wrists are simply too big for our existing smaller sets”.

The larger cuffs close down to the same minimum size as the existing sets.