It’s important to know that Jacobson and Silverbush don’t gloss over anything as they examine various aspects of this problem in the U.S. Food stamps, on average, only provide Americans with about $3 a day to feed themselves—which of course doesn’t go very far. U.S. Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) tried to survive on the “food-stamp diet” once, but couldn’t handle it; he got too hungry too quickly, he says. Sounds about right. So McGovern has been trying to end hunger in the U.S., but he’s in the minority—because the federal bureaucracy is totally fine subsidizing things like corn (and, therefore, high-fructose corn syrup), but throws barely any money at fresh produce. Meaning that crap is cheap and healthy stuff is expensive, which means that most school lunches are made with frozen, processed garbage instead of fresh food, which means that little kids like Rosie, an elementary school student in Colorado, gets distracted in school because of vicious stomach cramps that won’t let her concentrate. Because her family makes more than $28,000 a year, they don’t qualify for food assistance—meaning her and the other six members of her family suffer every day. It’s absurd in a profoundly unsettling way.
And the thing is that, although Rosie’s story is unbelievably upsetting, it’s not like she’s the only one. Jacobson and Silverbush fill the documentary with similarly distressing narratives, like the “food deserts” in rural and urban communities that don’t even stock produce because they can’t afford it; or the tale of Mississippi, which has the highest rates of obesity and food insecurity, or not knowing where your next meal is going to come from, in the U.S.; or of single mothers like Philadelphia’s Barbie, struggling to feed her children on minimum wage. There’s obviously an agenda here, but can you blame the directors? Learning that about 50 million Americans aren’t sure when they’re next going to eat is a stark, sobering realization.
For children and teenagers especially, “A Place at the Table” is exactly the kind of documentary that will resonate—who hasn’t been hungry before? But seeing that lack amplified to this magnitude is shocking and, hopefully, galvanizing. Nevertheless, there is a sense that the documentary, with its animated graphics and barrage of interviews from teachers and economists and authors and politicians, still isn’t doing enough. After outlining all the shady dealings between the government and the lobbying groups that keep junk food cheap, it’s hard to think about how “A Place at the Table” can affect change on a broad level, especially because the film argues that it was during the 1980s, when government funding vanished from food assistance programs and politicians decided charities and outside groups could carry the weight, that hunger skyrocketed. The question the film is really asking becomes about class and social stigma, not just hunger, and that becomes very weighty indeed.
Nevertheless, “A Place at the Table” is still undeniably impactful for individual viewers—and can hopefully inspire a conversation, and some action, from children concerned about their peers around the country. Perhaps in preparing the future to deal with this problem, we can start making small changes in the present.
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