Fabian Castellon

9/9/2013
English 115
Rhetorical Summaries
In Being Fat Is OK by Paul Campos, the author argues that the obesity problem in the
United States is not as it is truly made out to be. He accomplishes this mainly through the use of
logos and ethos as he links studies done by credible seeming institutions such as an authority of
the New England Journal of Medicine, which states that the data linking overweight and death
are limited, fragmentary, and often ambiguous. He then later in the article compares obesity
being linked to death such as skin color being linked to death as an analogy to demonstrate the
ridiculousness of the entire situation. Yet overall even through all these techniques I feel as
though the author did not adequately address counterarguments and seemed to load his side with
only evidence to support himself, and I was not thoroughly convinced in the end.
The second article, Dont Blame the Eater by David Zinczento, argues that people are
not entirely at fault for being overweight, and that the fast food industry should take some of the
brunt of the backlash. He utilized both pathos and ethos in the third paragraph by giving the
reader a description of his lifestyle growing up and his relationship with fast food to both induce
a bit of sympathy for those that were in a similar position, as well as lending him some
credibility for also going through a similar situation. He then chimes in with a bit of logos later
into the article, throwing facts about healthcare and the outrageous number of calories in a fast
food salad in order to make the reader understand the serious threat fast food poses. Zinczento
then finishes off strongly by marking similarities between fast food marketing and cigarette
marketing to really push forward his argument that the companies do in fact play a larger part in
obesity than sometimes given credit for.
The third article, Junking Junk Food by Judith Warner immediately opens up with an
example of rhetoric by comparing Sarah Palin and her cookies to free market and government
regulation. She explains how Obamas method of combating obesity is ineffective and how
simply educating isnt enough, and that the cookies are striking back. She then talks about a
method that she believes would work which is changing the culture around food much as we did
with smoking, which is an effective used of logic and logos. Near the end an example of why her
method would succeed is demonstrated through the historical example of rationing in World War
2. She then ends the article by reemphasizing her point about a change in food culture being
necessary to changing our obesity problem.
The final article, What You Eat Is Your Business takes on the topic of government
intervention in regards to food. The author of the article argues that instead of taking options
away from the people, the government should instead be working to foster a sense of
responsibility in and ownership of our health. He cites examples of how the government it
taking responsibility from the people for themselves as well as quotes from someone from the
Center for Science in the Public Interest back up his statement as well as provide some
credibility to his argument. He then ends the article by giving his own solution to the problem
and the pros associated with it in order to convince the reader to back him up. He then ends with
a strong 2 sentence paragraph that leaves the reader both thinking and want to look back at what
has already been said.