The following appeared in the health section of a magazine on trends and lifestyles:
“People who use the artificial sweetener aspartame are better off consuming sugar, since aspartame can actually contribute to weight gain rather than weight loss. For example, high levels of aspartame have been shown to trigger a craving for food by depleting the brain of a chemical that registers satiety, or the sense of being full. Furthermore, studies suggest that sugars, if consumed after at least 45 minutes of continuous exercise, actually enhance the body’s ability to burn fat. Consequently, those who drink aspartame-sweetened juices after exercise will also lose this calorie-burning benefit. Thus it appears that people consuming aspartame rather than sugar are unlikely to achieve their dietary goals.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable Assumptions unlike the thinking and what alternative explanations or counter examples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The recommendation endorsed in this argument is that people fail to get dietary benefit from eating aspartame. The reasons cited are that aspartame with high level would induce people to eat more and that people lose the merit of discomposing fat after a 45-minutes continuous exercise. These reasons sounds convincing at the first glance. Close scrutiny, however, reveals several logic flaws of this argument.
To begin with, the argument depends on the conclusion that high level of aspartame result in less sense of being full, thus triggering people to eat more. Whereas it ignores to provide further details of this conclusion, such as whether this level of aspartame be possible for normal intake or it only works in certain group of people. It is entirely possible, if any of those details happens, that the conclusion is insufficient to provide any support for the argument.
In addition, the author’s second explanation of the con of aspartame dose not suffice to prove that people would be better off taking in sugar rather than using aspartame as substitution. On the one hand, sugar have the function of burning fat after people exercise consistently after 45 minutes dose not equal to with aspartame the function disappears. On the other hand, the article take for granted that with a few defects that aspartame loses the upper hand over sugar, overseeing the numerous benefits brought by aspartame. For instance, aspartame is with 0 calorie and much sweeter as well as cheaper than sugar, lowering the cost of sweets produced by it. People wanting to have a diet could benefit from its low calorie and cost, while enjoying the same flavor and satisfaction as taking normal sweets.
In sum, this argument is weak and vague. To strengthen the argument, the author must provide additional information about the adequacy of the first conclusion and a comprehensive comparison of their pros and cons between aspartame and sugar. Only with more accurate evidence could this argument be more thorough and convincing.
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