Documentary Summary: A Place At The Table

In the economically unpredictable country, the United States of America, there is obvious signs of corporate exploitation of the middle and lower classes in terms of economic status. However, the last thing you would think of are these huge food corporations scheming a class-based geographical empire of fast food chains with a scarcity of supermarkets. Food deserts are urban and rural areas, mainly of the lower class, that have virtually no access to healthy food options. Leading to more obesity and other dietary related diseases, such as diabetes. There are about 23 million people that live in food deserts, and out of that 23 million, “[more] than half of those people (13.5 million) are low- income” (Agricultural Marketing). A barren wasteland consisting of no healthy food options, or even a market where you can at least have a choice on what you eat, seems to be impossible to come by.

The rising health problems in the United States of America are caused by poor nutrition, people who are sedentary, the lack of healthcare prevention, and many more. As reported on the Tikkun website, “Of the many systems in our world today that need to be reimagined, none is more important for our future than our food system” (1). The lack of our food system is one of the many factors that has led the United States to its uprising dilemmas; one of the many factors are the food deserts across the U.S. Food deserts are geographic areas where access to affordable healthy and nutritious food are limited, or impossible to purchase, by residents in the area. Food deserts are prone to low-income areas that can’t afford transportation, and due to the lack of grocery stores and supermarkets that sells fresh produce and healthy food within convenient distance to resident’s homes, there is a difficulty in obtaining healthy food options which leads to countless health issues. According to the Diabetes Forecast website, “About 18.3 million Americans live in low-income areas and are far from a supermarket” (1). So the problem is, how can food deserts be eliminated in the

The poor are not responsible for hungry lives, without water and electricity. There are deep inequalities and fundamental deficiencies of social organization. The problem of hunger is not only a question of food production (the bigger, the better) but also of access to food and equity. There are no winners and losers. With these degrees of exclusion, we 're all losers. Social cohesion is weakened, and conflict situations are created, generating violence and sick societies.

When you hear obesity, do you imagine malnutrition or simply an individual who “eats too much?” Well, these health threatening issues go hand and hand. Learning that a large number of obese individuals are low income, it can be concluded that a lack of funds results in cheaper, more fattening and unhealthy food purchases, which ultimately can develop into malnutrition and unsafe weight gain. The eye-opening film, A Place At The Table, provides viewers with a true representation of how the issues of hunger and malnutrition in the United States affect individuals on a daily basis. Throughout this movie, the filmmakers, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, examine the lives of three individuals who suffer from hunger and and lack of nutrition. Although our

In short, many people around the United States suffer from food instability and hunger. People can’t always help the situations they are in, but there are things almost everyone can do to help the hunger situation in

In conclusion, there isn’t a singular answer to solving the issue of food deserts in America. Solutions must focus on all the factors that interplay with the increase of food deserts across the nation, such as age, wealth, transportation, socialization, access to health, poverty etc, if there is to ever be an elimination of food deserts. However, as legislators aim to reform America’s health care system and reduce costs, it would be

Our family can only eat whatever we grow on a small plot of land located a short way from our house. We have no other form of income so if we are unable to pick anything to eat from the land we go without food on that day. This happens a lot and we regularly go several days without any food at all. When we do pick vegetables from the land it’s very rarely enough for the whole family to be fed so my husband and I have to decide who will eat that day. You can see my younger children crying a lot, it’s because they are so hungry.”“The only source of water for our family is a shallow well situated near to our field. The water is very dirty and the children regularly get sick

The Netflix original documentary, 13TH directed by Ava DuVernay explores the racial inequality in the United States throughout history. The documentary focuses mainly on the fact that most of the nation's prisons are unfairly filled with African Americans and colored people. The documentary educates the audience of the horrors the African Americans and colored people went through history and today beginning with slavery, to convict leasing, to Jim Crow Laws, and lastly to present mass incarceration. Ava deeply examines the economic history of slavery and Civil War racist legislation and practices that replaced it as "systems of racial control" and the present forced labor from the years after slavery was abolished. The powerful film 13TH represents

The Netflix original documentary, 13TH directed by Ava DuVernay explores the racial inequality in the United States throughout history. The documentary focuses mainly on the fact that most of the nation's prisons are unfairly filled with African Americans and colored people. The documentary educates the audience of the horrors the African Americans and colored people went through history and today beginning with slavery, to convict leasing, to Jim Crow Laws, and lastly to present mass incarceration. Ava deeply examines the economic history of slavery and Civil War racist legislation and practices that replaced it as "systems of racial control" and the present forced labor from the years after slavery was abolished. The powerful film 13TH represents

According to dosomething.org, one in five American children face hunger. In theory, this means that in my class of 20 kids, roughly four of them face hunger. According to a CNBC article, 42 million Americans suffer from hunger across the nation. This food insecurity as the Federal Government so kindly puts it, exists in every county in America. Food insecurity is defined as the lack of access at times to enough food for all household members, according to the USDA. Our country literally revolves around food, yet somehow we cannot even manage to feed our own people. In the movie “Over the Hedge”, a raccoon explains how animals eat to live, while humans live to eat.

According to the WTN Global Challenges Program Hunger Initiative, 578 million people in Asia and the Pacific , 239 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 37 million in the Near East and North Africa, and 19 million in developed countries are affected by hunger. That equates to about one in every ten people being affected by hunger. According to Dr. Lindsey Shirley, the author of “A Practical Problem Approach to World Hunger: Universities Fighting World Hunger,” since the second half of the 1900s, there has been an increase of about 4 million people per year who do not have enough to eat. These numbers should not be increasing every year, and there should be a solution to stop it (Shirley

Society tends to create places that are not friendly or look down upon people who are poor or just their harsh circumstances. So many people in today’s world are indulging in social criminality such as drug related activities, prostitution/ sex trafficking, and committing petty crimes to meet their basic needs, because these people are so vulnerable and is willing to do anything for a meal higher authority such as the government, and politicians often take advantage of this certain group of people. In the article, Food, Pantries, Poverty and Social Justice the author states “Food insecurity is only part of poverty, inadequate nutrition all too often is associated with inadequate shelter, lack of health care, bad education, and poverty is at the core all.” (Greenberg p3). Poverty brings so many life struggles and complications that may result in extreme hungry. Starvation, treatable and untreatable diseases because a person living under such harsh conditions do not have any access to health care or food and sometimes are forced to engage in various behaviors that exposes them to HIV/Aids, crack, harsh drinking problems and some become suicidal and or harm others because they are unable to cope with society and leaving in poverty. In the article, Human Development,

The Politics of Food questions where responsibility lies for the mass numbers of individuals suffering from malnutrition and lack of food on a daily basis. Schanbacher brings to light unfair global trade arrangements and the failure of an unjust neoliberal theory and policy to meet the needs of developing countries. Schanbacher also addresses the issue regarding the contradiction amongst food security and food sovereignty, and how these two terms are defined based on various organizations and the conflicting parameters they have offered for what they consider to define malnutrition and hunger. Schanbacher poses questions as to how organizations address global poverty, and how poverty is perceived by these organizations. Schanbacher provides many examples as to how many developing, poorer countries have essentially been tricked by the Government to participate in different programs which seemingly aim for a positive outcome. Instead, these programs have led to failure in

Do you ever think about the millions of families and kids that suffer from not being able to have food? You should be very grateful if you have a family to provide food for you because not every kid does. Hunger is a term which has three meanings:

The world produces enough food to feed the 7 billion people living in the world, but the hungry also have no land to grow food or money to buy it.