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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Glitter doesn’t belong on vampires.

Opposition Argument – Glitter should be on vampires because it makes them more interesting and would be scarier at night.

Audience – 10-35 year olds, especially those who read or watch the Twilight series.

What we know about the audience – they are gullible, but passionate about this series.  They will fight to the teeth because of their affinity for the characters and more importantly the actors in the Twilight series.

What’s important to arguing with them – the response to Twilight is particularly emotional response, so we should rebut in kind.  We also need to try to separate the attraction to actors from the content of the movie.

Their rebuttals – it doesn’t matter, it isn’t real.  We like the way glitter looks on vampires.

Why this audience – this audience has accepted the new paradigm of vampire, whereas older audiences already agree with our argument based on their own prior experiences in vampire-related entertainment.  We hope they will consider our argument and perhaps see that the existence of glitter on the vampires is unnecessary and doesn’t add anything to their capabilities.

Power to act – the audience has the choice of reading or not reading/viewing or not viewing materials that promote a sparkly vampire.  At worst, they can expand word-of-mouth disdain for the concept of a glitter on vampires.

Our rhetoric – Vampires are often considered devilish/demonic figures, and they can’t be taken seriously if they glitter.  It detracts from their more intimidating characteristics.  Glittering is demonstrated in Twilight when the vampires are in sunlight, but in traditional vampire movies or books, vampires are always weakened, injured, or killed by the sun.  The new age of glittering vampires flies in the face of centuries of vampire lore.

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