Several years ago, walking the streets as part of my job as a youth worker on an inner city estate, the devils and extraordinary hardships of poverty seemed almost like a distant report, something unimaginable from a bygone age.
People had it hard, some more so than others and youth problems were as much as a problem then as they are nowadays, but access to the very basics were so easily acquired that, in a way, they became taken for granted.
Access to food was abundant, partly due to the ease of access to fast food and quick and easily attained frozen products.
In short, the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter were, in most parts, never a question.
Roll on six years and what has changed? Well, what cannot be ignored, especially over the past year or so, maybe even the past few months is the effects of austerity measures upon low income families in the UK.
Over the past few months, food banks, soup kitchens and school breakfast clubs have seen an explosion as fears have risen over the impact of Government cuts on the living standards of low-income families.
This is a scary proposition.
The gap between rich and poor, already quite substantial in 2007, has grown exponentially as government cuts effect the poorest people and the poorest regions the most.
This widening gap has forced some low income families into a desperate situation where, without Government support, they have been forced into charitable assistance to just get by.
This isn't just a problem that is contained to the most vulnerable people.
Working families on low incomes, who either fall just outside the tax-free income bracket or do not qualify for any form of benefit assistance, have been forced to visit food banks to ensure their families are suitably nourished.
What this has helped to undermine is a consistent approach to healthy eating, which is absolutely integral to help win the fight against child obesity.
Yesterday's report in the Guardian of a survey taken by school officials where reports of cold chips and rice had been sent in some packed lunches underlines the need for a more concerted effort to ensure that families have the both the required knowledge and basic skills to be able ensure their children are properly fed.
It is absolutely criminal to think that we, as an industrialised Western nation, despite the dragging effects of recession, have working families in a position where households have to eat less or buy cheap, nutritionally-poorer food to get by.
The fact of the matter is that as welfare nets shrink and living costs increase, standard of living will inevitably fall.
The consequences will be extremely hard to bear.
The problem here is a bit of a catch-22.
Widening economic and geographic inequalities in the UK have forced shops in deprived neighbourhoods to close down meaning access to cheap, healthy produce is hard to come by.
In their places takeaway restaurants and budget supermarkets have answered the need for cheap food which in turn has helped encourage the growth of obesity in these areas.
We need to be mindful of this gap between both rich and poor on an economic scale but also, just as importantly, on a nutritional scale.
Local councils should not be backed into a corner by large fast food multinationals looking watery mouthed at strategic empty shops in social deprived areas.
The people that are running the food banks and collecting stations up and down the country are beautiful people doing beautiful things but what we are fighting is a two way struggle.
The fight to end poverty as we know it in our country but also to educate families about the absolute importance of not putting cold chips inside their children's lunchbox.
I still have hope.