Four lessons to end child hunger from ‘The Bear’

ENOUGH campaign leader Elena Gaia reflects on how the award-winning Hulu show teaches us about the power of nutritious food served with love and care. 

With its premise of a young chef from the fine dining world returning to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop, I had expected this show to be an honest look at the world of kitchens in a post-pandemic world. I ended up captured by the characters’ complex life journeys, touching on many issues of our contemporary societies: finding purpose and silver linings amid adversity and inequality; the challenge of tending to our mental health; investing in people – to name a few.  

As a campaigner for children’s right to enough nutritious food, I loved how in the series food fuels community: within the kitchen, in the family and with customers. In a memorable scene in Season 1, the series’ co-lead, chef Sydney (played by Golden Globe and Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri) even staves off an impending conflict outside the restaurant by giving away sandwiches, 

At that moment, I started looking at the series differently. With billions poured every year into the restaurant industry the system that The Bear depicts, this show could perhaps tell us a thing or two about how to handle one of the most despairing issues still plaguing our abundant planet: child hunger and malnutrition.  

Every second counts 

For the 45 million children suffering from wasting worldwide, each second with or without therapeutic food means the difference between life and death. When support is delivered promptly, famines can be averted. That kind of ‘counting’. Just like in the fine dining kitchens shown in Season 2 of The Bear, where sub-optimal design of food systems affects customer service, so are millions of children not receiving available life-saving treatment for malnutrition because of systemic design issues. That’s why World Vision campaigns for essential nutrition services to be delivered by well-resourced community health systems. 

Cooking for the cooks 

In an early scene during Season 1, food is prepared for the ‘family meal’ (i.e. the staff’s lunch), with the same care as if it was being served to paying customers at an upscale restaurant. If the crew is well fed and happy, so will the clients be. In our advocacy and programmes, we focus a lot on the children experiencing hunger and malnutrition, and rightly so for they are too often forgotten when it comes to analysing root causes and designing solutions. However, children anywhere depend on a system of care that starts with their parents or guardians, continues into extended families and goes forth into communities and entire countries. If a parent or carer is not doing well, there is little chance that the children in their company would do much better. So, while agencies like our, governments and other service providers should design programmes based on the lived experience of hungry and malnourished children, let’s not forget to provide nourishing food and other type of support to their parents and other caregivers at the same time. World Vision's Nurturing Care Groups are a great example. 

Anticipation creates luxuriation 

We read of growing numbers of children going hungry and malnourished while also seeing humanitarian appeals unfunded and aid agencies having to cut rations at many locations. Anticipation means acknowledging that at any point in history there will be some hunger spot on this planet and therefore we need to prepare for swiftly responding to those needs when they arise. Anticipation means accepting that climate change at its current rate will disrupt food systems and therefore we need to build systems that can withstand those shocks. Anticipation means ensuring every child has more than just the survival minimum, so they can bounce back faster and steadier when shocks inevitably will hit. 

Turned on its head, this principle means we can no longer feel content with only responding to child hunger and malnutrition: we must work hard to anticipate its manifestations and eradicate its root causes. Only then will children experience that fullness of life, that simple ‘luxury’ which the finale of Season 2 represents as ending a meal with an unexpected food memory from childhood.  

Trust your family spaghetti 

The Bear’s season 1 finale says it loud and clear: your family recipes are literally gold. After initially rejecting the spaghetti with tomatoes as unworthy of his menu, the show’s co-lead chef Carmy (played by Golden Globe winner Jeremy Allen White) is inspired by his late brother’s written note to revisit that dish and a welcome surprise ensues. That’s also what years of research and experience have told World Vision and other practitioners in nutrition and hunger. Rather than following some sort of universal solution, families, tribes, communities, cultures all have their nutritious local recipes, rooted in ancient knowledge and sustainable practices. We should trust and promote these.   

One of the scenes that I found most memorable is in Season 2, when Michelin-starred chef Terry (played by Oscar and Golden Global winner Olivia Colman) is found humbly peeling mushrooms in her restaurant’s empty early morning kitchen – so that customers can feel the love and care of those who prepared their meal. Contrast that personal treatment with the processed food too many low-income parents are forced to buy on sale at the end of their long workday, because they don’t have time nor resources to cook for their children from scratch. Contrast that to the standardised rations of basic food staples millions of hungry children receive every day through the aid system. Even in these scenarios, I imagine parents finding their ways to add their touch, their flavour to those dishes and ingredients, so that their children can experience a special meal of love.  

That is perhaps the most powerful message of hope from this show: give a child good enough ingredients, support, faith and community and she will transform from an outdated barely surviving ‘Beef’ into a vibrant strong ‘Bear’ worthy of a Michelin star. 

Elena Gaia is World Vision International’s Director of Global Campaigns, based in Geneva Switzerland. She has previously worked with World Vision, UNICEF, and other UN bodies to fight violence against children, improve social protection systems, and advocate for child rights.