Argument Task- Please critique it!

[blu_skyee]

Hi! I just wrote this under real testing conditions. Please provide me with some feedback if you can, and don't be afraid to be harsh if necessary. I really need all the help I can get! Thanks

 

The following appeared in a health magazine.

"The citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago. Furthermore, there has been a fourfold increase in sales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific study has shown reduces cholesterol. This trend is also evident in reduced sales of sulia, a food that few of the most healthy citizens regularly eat."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

Being aware of how reliable sources are is very important when it comes to believing everything you read. Learning to question everything is a quality that is most important to have in order to not believe fraught information. The argument that the citizen have adopted healthier lifestyles is flawed because it makes assumptions that are not supported by the evidence provided in the article.

 

One of the main flaws of this article comes from the comparison of two populations. The article begins by stating that the citizens have adopted healthier lifestyles, but there is no mention of what their lifestyles were like before. It is mentioned that 10 years ago, the citizens did not conform to the government’s nutritional recommendations as well as they do now. The fallacy here is that two populations are being compared as if they were a cohort group. The people that lived in Forsythe 10 years ago are not necessarily the same people that live there now. Also, the government’s nutritional recommendations 10 years ago may not have been as good or as well-known as they are today. This argument also relies on survey information which may be misleading and biased. In order to make this argument more valid the magazine would need to specify the role of the government on nutrition 10 years ago and make sure that the surveys come from a representative sample of people.

Another flaw of this argument is that it relies too heavily on sales of foods. It is mentioned that the sales of food have increased by four. It is tempting to believe that because the food contains Kiran the people are eating healthier, but there could be something else at play. The mass quantities of healthy food that are being bought today compared to 10 years ago may be due to an increase in population. This is something the article needs to account for to make the argument more valid. Also, there is also the possibility that more of the foods available in Forsythe today contain Kiran compared to 10 years ago. It is also important to acknowledge that only one scientific study has shown that kiran reduces cholesterol. The magazine article should not promote how healthy kiran is before more studies are carried out. The same goes for the reduced sales of sulia in Forsythe. The argument would be more valid if the article included percentages of the foods available that contain sulia. It may be that the sales have decreased because the availability of the product has decreased.

 

In conclusion, the argument that the citizens of Forsythe are living healthier lives today than 10 years ago is flawed because it doesn’t provide enough supportive evidence to have a valid argument. The magazine article relies on assumptions of different populations and food sales to make an argument that falls apart with minimal questioning.