Month: April 2016

After watching A Place at the Table, I feel as though I personally became more passionate about the war of food justice in America. The directors of the documentary were mindful in their use of research. They employed a lot of first-hand stories that were jam packed with pathos. Whenever one of those individuals would make a claim, their statement was backed up by a scholar. Additionally, they included various statistics on the millions of people affected by food insecurities. The way they included these statistics was even more helpful, because they were turned into short and colorful animated clips.

One of the stories that touched me was of a woman from Mississippi who was a chef at a local restaurant. That restaurant mainly served fried food, made with a lot of cholesterol and oil. The story touched me because in my culture, a lot of the food we make is fried and unhealthy. What made this story more appalling is the fact that before this story was told, authors presented statistics saying that Mississippi is the city with the highest rates of obesity and food insecurity.

Another strong suit of the documentary is the fact that it follows one woman throughout her journey to being food secure. Not only did this strategy help the audience understand the severity of the issue, but it also touched the audience because the woman never truly became food secure, and instead faced one issue after the next.

Overall, the producers of this documentary were very intentional in their use of research. They employed both scholarly and non-scholarly sources, and they had first-hand stories which added to their logos and pathos.

This piece dealt with the public health issue of food accessibility. The use of research was highly prevalent in the development of the filmmakers arguments. They used interviews, first-hand filming of families, stats, news clips, and more. They covered their research in a variety of communities and backgrounds to show the widespread nature of the problem. It also worked similarly to the New York Times commentary we looked at in class. The use of many experts points of view allowed the creation of a single voice preaching an argument. One of the main arguments made through these voices is that the ‘cost of hunger’ is much higher than what the government spends on food stamps. There are so many more ‘overhead’ costs to hunger, including healthcare costs for those who are malnourished from essential nutrients.

The filmmakers used these people and their family as a ‘research source’, one example being the before and after approach with Barbie. The audience expected that Barbie’s struggles would have gone away after receiving a full time salary. Much to the surprise of the viewers, her struggles continued because she no longer qualified for food stamps. This was a highly effective strategy by the filmmaker to show the inefficiencies in the government support of hunger.

This is one specific example but it is the one that stood out to me as most effective. This was a bold strategy to shape their argument even further. Overall, I believe the film did a nice job throughout to clearly shape its’ argument and use overwhelming research to grab the attention of the audience.

This documentary showed a correlation between hunger and obesity that people who do not struggle to put food on the table may not realize exists. To do this they showed a child at her physical talking to the doctor about her eating habits. When she said she usually has some sort of chips for an after school snack her doctor suggested she ask her mother to buy something healthier like fruit. This was followed by an interview in the girls home with her mother talking about how expensive food is and how when she is at the grocery store if the chips are cheaper she will choose them over the produce, but when produce is on sale she opts for that. After this personal story they cut to an expert in the field who explains how many people understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy, however they cannot afford the healthier options. They go on to explain how many of these problems lie within public policy because the government is unwilling to spend the money it would take to make people, especially children, healthier. In order to get their message across effectively they overlay personal stories with experts who explain what actually needs to be done. This way people who watch will form an emotional attachment to the families whose stories are shared. This way more people in the general population can gain an understanding of what is happening with people living in their country, state, town, and possibly neighborhood. They also showed a doctor who advocates for these issues take a group of women from Philly to Washington to talk to Congress about putting more money into healthy school lunches. Ultimately they were unsuccessful and Congress ended up taking some money from food stamps to pay for the healthier lunches. This story is there to motivate people to get involved and write to their Congressmen, volunteer at a food bank, or any other way they can help people in their communities eat.

The filmmakers presented the majority of their research in a way that was intended to appeal to the audience’s pathos. They followed the lives of several families from all over the United States to show that the problem is widespread. We got to see where and how they lived as well as hear firsthand from the parents and kids about their struggles with food insecurity. They showed the hunger problems and health problems associated with it by having children speak and be shown at the doctor’s office. This all pulls of the viewer’s emotions and made the video more relatable and impactful. They also presented facts very clearly. When they had a statistic, it would be put up of the screen in big letters and be made the focus at that time. They also used visuals like graphs and charts. One example I found pretty impactful was when they showed the rise in food insecurity throughout the terms of the different presidents. They would show video of the presidents speaking about wanting to help the problem but at the bottom of the screen show the number of insecure people in America rising by the millions. They used interviews with people to back up the claims and fact that they had just presented. One part I found very effective was when they were following this woman with two kids who was on food stamps. She finally got a job and was so happy to have one but because of that, she lost her food assistance. She had to struggle and worry about feeding her kids more when she had a job than when she was on food stamps. Also, they really did a good job at showing that obesity and food security go hand in hand. They used children and really good visuals to show that the cheap things to ge with little money are the very unhealthy, processed foods. They even interviewed a person that works for food assistance that tried to live off of a food stamp budget. He only could make it one week because he couldn’t buy healthy things of get enough food to last him the week. Overall, I believe that this film did a really good job of presenting their ideas and backing it up with first hand interviews and visuals the appeal to the audience emotions.

This riveting and informing film focused on the food security many face in today’s society. Surprisingly, one would not think food security exists in this country because we are known to produce plenty of food (while unhealthy) and there are restaurants everywhere. What’s important is that there are more fast food places than healthy food places and the idea of food security adds to a different twist in this film. There is an interesting way the filmmakers used research in this documentary to paint an accurate picture on the issues many Americans are facing today with food security. Unlike any other texts that many of us are familiar with, the research is presented in through a film/documentary. Most people would never think of a film to be considered a piece of text, but this film did provide useful information just like a typical study, article, journal, etc. would. The filmmakers in this documentary used research different in ways where their research is based on primary research and professional research. Raj Matel, an Author of the book “Stuffed and Starved,” and Marion Nestle, the author of “Food Politics” add value to the research done in the film. These authors add credible information and sources from people who know the issue accurately and can converse about it. The little girl used in research is the primary research as her lenses on the issue also adds as much value to this research because she is immediately impacted from food security. Additionally, the African American girl in this film who suffers from obesity also contributes to the research because has a disease that is a common health issue in America. Food security is an important issue and the filmmakers made sure to portray the information in an alarming way because it’s serious and it causes youth obesity, lack of healthy food available, etc. The fight for healthier foods and better school lunches from young women who do not have the proper resources to feed their children added to the pathos in this film. Overall, the research presented in this film is different yet it accomplishes important goals to ensure people are aware of these common issues.