Refutation of “Obesity is Not a Disease”

The author’s position is that obesity is not a disease because he believes it can be avoided by managing eating habits and exercise alone.  Our position is that obesity is a disease, and the author’s argument is flawed because:

• his tone (overly sarcastic and angry) affects his credibility.  It is difficult to take him seriously.
• he contradicts himself in his definition of a disease.
• his use of the term “Big Brother” makes him sound like a raving lunatic.  Paranoid much?
• he infers that there will be no personal accountability, but the only way to succeed in conquering weight problems long-term is the incorporation of lifestyle changes and action.
• he refutes scientific data without including any of the statistics.
• he uses no data to strengthen his own argument.
• he doesn’t give clear examples of fast food restaurants who are allegedly perpetuating the obesity problem.
• He generalizes, ignoring medical causes for obesity.
• He stereotypes often, assuming that all obese people are regular consumers of fast food.
• he never reveals a credible source in the text of the essay.
• he doesn’t seem to have a clear audience or impetus for writing, he’s just ranting.
• he seems to believe that there is no social responsibility held by the government or corporations.  His decision to side with corporations alienates a large potential audience.
• he claims to understand the motivation of American consumers without research.
• he uses melodramatic phrases, like the standalone paragraph that reads “Nonsense.”

Overall, we believe that this argument is nothing more than a rant, similar to what we would read on a blog.  We don’t think it deserves credit for anything more, because any true research he did isn’t apparent at any point in the article.

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Research!!

When I usually conduct research, I usually to Academic One File or Google and find a lot of articles about my topic. At some point I LOVED Wikipedia, then I understood how bad of a source it is to use sometime. At this point within my college career, my short-comings have been very LUCKY as far as finding a lot of sources and research. I’m really, really lazy when it comes to doing and finding evident research. I usually know if the source is good or not if it has some type of collegiate standard to it, or if the author has a good track record or is well-known.

 

 

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Counter-Argue To “Obesity Is Not a Disease”

Obesity Is Not a Disease

George Hawley:

• He is ranting and not giving any real evidence. His “argument” is only from his point of view and is too personal. Who is his audience? Parents? We aren’t sure. In this argument he is too bias and is so narrow minded.

Us:

• Obesity is a RESULT of a disease but not a disease itself. Our audience will be people who think it is a disease and health care/ medical field and G. Hawley.We will be bring in more evidence and become more specific to where the line is between obesity VS. being overweight.

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Refutation

Refutation of “Obesity is a Disease”

-Obesity results from lack of self-control- false point because obesity is not always caused by a lack of self-control.

-Ignoring all of the pseudo-scientific research that tries to absolve overweight individuals from bearing any responsibility for their size, we should be specific about what obesity really is- we need that research.

-No one is forced to eat more calories than they burn, and overweight people can see dramatic improvements in their health and appearance by changing their lifestyles- just because a person changes their lifestyle doesn’t mean that they will be able to rid themselves of obesity.

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Refutation of “Obesity is Not a Disease”

Obesity is Not a Disease

We choose to Refute

Weaknesses:

-Hawley defines a disease as pathological, but then goes on to say that being obese is a person’s choice. This is a weakness because he contradicted himself. His main definition does not support his argument.

-He only used his opinion. He did not provide facts to back-up his claims. Using opinion makes an author lose credibility.

-He does not give enough support as to how obesity is not a disease. If he can’t support his own argument, then it won’t be effective.

-His tone is very angry. Having an angry tone would make the audience close themselves off to what he has to say.

-He does not cite enough of his sources. He thinks the reader will just take his word for it. Not citing sources is a huge blow to an author’s credibility.

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Doing Research

In conducting most of my research work, I turn to the internet’s various search engines for resource materials related to the project. Using the Google search engine, I type in keywords, words, sentences or questions relating to my topic.

In going through the results from the search engine, I look through the search results, clicking and opening web pages that look similar to the project and read through, picking off or summarizing key paragraphs or sentences and apply them to my paper.

Getting to know the credibility of the source never occurred to me till I took English class. The moment I get the sentence or keynote needed, I just summarize in my own words and not bother if the source is good or not. In other to confirm my sources now, I check the organization or website and its content.

 

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Research

To be honest, before I started college, my first instinct was to Google random sentences when researching a topic. I’d type in keywords or sentences and just hope that something good would show up. I would use websites that had seemingly useful content and never bothered to check to see if those sources were trustworthy or not.

Now, I take a different approach.  Even though I use websites from Google hits in my research, I make sure that each site is reliable and comes from credible authors and sources. To do this, I look at the organization that developed the website (universities, government, businesses, etc) and I look at the web address itself to see if it ends in .edu or .gov. I think sources that come from universities or government sites are less subjective than other sites (that maybe end in .com) because they have to be more professional.

I also pay attention to the tone of the content within a website. For example, if I go to a site where the author just rambles on angrily about a certain topic, I will know that this site is not credible because, for starters, the author does not know how to write professionally.  A good source presents information in a professional and academic manner.

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Question of the Week #4

I can not think of a specific time that I have really lost an argument. I try not to get into to many arguments, but when I do, I end them quickly with straight forward, clear points. I build a strong foundation for my points to rest on and it generally works. I enjoy holding debate discussions with people as long as things are kept respectful. Again, I cannot think of a time I have lost an argument, though I’m sure it has happened before.

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Question of the Week 5

Question of the Week #5 (3/27-4/2): How do you (you specifically, not someone in general) conduct research online? How do you go about finding sources for a paper? How do you know if the source is good or not?

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My Dad Wins

My family and I went to Mexico this past summer. We were not going to be able to use our cell phones because of how expensive the roaming charges were. My sister, brother, and I had boyfriends and girlfriends back home that we weren’t going to be able to talk to for a week. I was probably the most upset about not being able to talk to my boyfriend. However, I argued with my dad about being able to use his cell phone every day for a short conversation with my boyfriend. He said that I could survive a week without talking to my boyfriend. Also he said that it was our family vacation and that I should have fun with the family. I yelled and said no I don’t think I could survive without talking with him for a week, but I agreed with him about spending time with my family. He also claimed that it would be very expensive if he allowed my sister, my brother and I to talk on the phone every day. Now that I look back on it he was probably right about it being expensive. I don’t think it was much about the money as it was about just having fun with my family on vacation. I tried to find other ways to argue with him about allowing me to talk to my boyfriend. I couldn’t find any other ways, he had won. My dad usually wins many arguments because he loves to argue with anyone. In this case it was my dad’s word over mine and there was no way I could change his mind.

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