More than 900,000 food parcels were handed out to just over 37,000 people in Yorkshire and Humberside in the past year by the Trussell Trust alone, we are told.

In February, we were told by Public Health England that more than two-thirds of adults in the Bradford district were classified as obese or overweight, while a different study found that 38 per cent of residents take no physical exercise at all.

If people are getting fatter – with the consequent cost of remedial treatment by the NHS – why are more people requesting food handouts from the Trussell Trust and Bradford Metropolitan Foodbank – a different organisation carrying out the same charitable function?

Or are we talking about two entirely different sections of society, as different to one another in lifestyle and circumstances as, say, merchant bankers and municipal gardeners?

People get overweight for a variety of reasons including personal unhappiness, bad eating habits, eating and drinking too much at the wrong time of night and then compensating by not eating at other times. Only Fat People Don’t Eat Breakfast is actually the title of a book.

None of the people I spoke to thought that obesity in the Bradford district and free food handouts were linked.

Welfare reforms or cuts combined with the rising cost of living is the reason foodbanks are so busy, say some, even though the rate of inflation has gone down to 1.6 per cent and more people than ever are in work.

For the past 30 years, John Tempest has been giving up his Friday nights to operate the Bradford Soup Run. He and his helpers dish up a nourishing three-course meal to anywhere up to 100 homeless people. Benefit cuts is a preoccupation among his clientele.

“They say it’s harder to jump through the hoops. People who give out the benefits are trying to meet targets,” Mr Tempest said, implying that the Government’s self-proclaimed drive to get people off benefits and into work was having an effect.

David Ward, Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, whose constituency has seen a drop in Job Seekers’ Allowance of about 900 over the past year, said he wondered if scaring people into jobs was part of the overall strategy.

He said: “Maybe the aim is to make it a hostile environment for people who are unemployed. The trouble is, the background to all this, is that the public at large believe the welfare system is dysfunctional and needs sorting out.

“They are pretty unsympathetic to people who are claiming benefits – the skivers, the scroungers, as they see it.

“But the system from the Department of Work and Pensions that comes through JobCentres is inefficient. There are delays, letters get sent to the wrong address, or people try to ring up and can’t get through.

“One man who I saw was given 14 job inquiries to follow up in two weeks. He had been to 11. But because he had not been to all 14 his Job Seeker’s Allowance was stopped – ‘sanctioned’, it’s called.

“It could take you seven months before you’re back on Job Seeker’s. What are you supposed to do if you haven’t got any money?”

Sanctioning has always been a feature of the benefits system. In 2009/10, sanctions handed out to job seekers totalled 4,370. Two years later the figure was 9,320, implying a tightening-up of the regime.

In those four years, a total of 22,490 sanctions were issued, which corresponds with the rapid growth of foodbank referrals by professional bodies.

Nick Hodgkinson, programme manager at the Community Advice Network in Bradford, said: “The perception we have as advisers is that front-line staff in JobCentres have less discretion to apply commonsense because they are up against targets. The biggest referers to Trussell Trust foodbanks are JobCentre staff who make these sanctions.

“People can submit a written request for a sanction to be reconsidered. Between 2009 and 2012 there were 4,990 requests that were granted; of those 2,520 sanctions were overturned.

“There are also hardship payments that the Department of Work and Pensions can make to people who are vulnerable, have young children, or are disabled,” he added.

For free independent advice on benefits and debt, go to bradfordcan.org.uk.