A Place At The Table And The House I Live In

Over the past week, I have had the opportunity to view both “A Place at the Table” and “The House I Live In” on Netflix. Through both of these films, I have learned more about the lives of those who live an unfortunate life but both films looked at different groups of people. “A Place at the Table” is a film that focused on families who work and still do not have enough food to provide for their families. “The House I Live In” is a film that looks into the war on drugs and the lives of those who have been affected by drugs and insight about how the United States’ criminal justice system operates. Though I learned so much from both films, I will be discuss the main ideas that I took from the film, “A Place at the Table” throughout this paper.

People struggle to find a job that pays enough but often times people are making just over the mark for them to be eligible for food stamps yet they still do not have enough money to provide for their family. Barbie, a woman who shared her story, opened up and told us that she grew up in a family that never knew where their next meal would be coming from. She shared that she never wanted to put her children in that same situation but she has no choice. She struggles to be able to tell her children that she will provide them with a fresh cooked meal. Barbie shared that she wants to and plans to go to college but she feels that she cannot because she must find money now and cannot take a pause for two years while she goes to get an education. Like many others, she was embarrassed about her situation but wants to educate people to understand what goes on. Through Barbie’s story, I noticed that she felt inferior to those who do not need assistance yet she desired to work and wanted to be successful. In this situation I feel that a social worker’s role would be to step up and help find Barbie resources to succeed and make her and and children’s lives better. I think that a social worker would also need to advocate for people in situations like Barbie’s. Social workers should step up and make these statistics be known and help Barbie to understand that she is not inferior and that it is

Surprisingly, I learned that Mississippi has the highest rate of food insecurity in the United States as well as the highest rate of obesity. The reason for this is that people have insufficient funds for food to stay healthy. According to “A Place at the Table”, the way funding has been organized for agriculture many mega farms are only producing the basic ingredients in processed foods and not fruits. As you can see in the grocery store, the price of fruits and vegetables are much more expensive than sweets and other processed foods therefore people who do not have the funds that they need will buy the cheapest calories that they can. This often leads to obesity in many people because they are unable to afford the healthy foods. I feel like this is something that many people even those who do have sufficient funds are finding a problem because they can buy so much more if they do not buy the healthy foods. Personally, I have seen problem within my own household. My doctor has recommended me to stop eating gluten and to resort to more healthy options to help with some health issues but my family struggles to spend twice, sometime three, times the amount for the same food but without the ‘cheap’ ingredient. I think that it is so important that our government addresses this issue and possibly reroutes the funding for what megas farms are