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ESL 0202 Argumentative Essay Model:

EXERCISE 1: Read the following essay and answer the questions below.

1. What is the topic of this essay?

2. Highlight the thesis in yellow.

3. Highlight the names of four diets that the writer mentions. What do you know about these diets?

4. Underline the writer’s position.

5. How does the writer support that position?

6. Where in the essay does the writer discuss opposing views? Highlight opposing views in pink. 

Watching What We Eat

Is that pizza crust gluten free?  I’m strictly Paleo.  Is this chicken organic?  Sorry, no carbs for me!  Diets.  It seems like everyone’s on one these days.   Whether they are restricting carbs, gorging on meat, or abstaining from gluten, Americans are diet obsessed!  This obsession is nothing new.  Like many of my peers, I was born and raised with diets.  Health professionals have been recommending “weight loss” programs since the nineteenth century.  From the cabbage soup diet to the no carb, Atkins diet; from the sugar-free movement to the Keto trend, dieting has come a long way.  But is following a prescribed diet really the healthiest way to lose weight?  With social media and Smartphone apps fueling the popularity of new and trendy diet fads, the long-term effectiveness of these plans gets ignored.  While fad diets like Paleo, Keto, or the Raw Food Movement might be a fun way to achieve short-term results, good, old-fashioned calorie counting is still the healthiest and most sustainable “diet plan” there is.  

Proponents of some of the latest diet trends really enjoy the community that social media and diet apps provide.  Friends can do the “Whole 30” challenge together and share weight loss triumphs and recipes.  Successful dieters can share their stories and inspire others to follow their plan dujour.  This community of dieters, however, can just as easily build friendships and challenges around balanced and moderate meal plans.  MyFitnessPal, an app that motivates healthy, balanced eating by sharing the nutritional values of the foods as well as counting calories, also provides options for challenges and friendships.  Dieters can engage in a long-term, sustainable diet plan of eating in moderation while also building an online community.  There is no need to engage in risky, restrictive diets in order to feel a part of a weight-loss community when options for healthier living are also available.

Another argument for fad diets is the fact that they do induce weight loss; however, restrictive diets can also cause physical harm. Diets like Keto and Atkins involve cutting down significantly on carbohydrates.  According a recent Washington Post survey, 25% of dieters in the U.S. believe that carbohydrates are the biggest cause of weight gain (Egan).  The Keto diet is called such because it causes the body to go into something called ketosis, a type of starvation state.  It's something that happens when a person eats too few carbohydrates, and it isn't natural.  So many recent fad diets have restricted carbs and natural sugars, forcing the body to feed on its own fat stores in order to survive.  Sure, a dieter loses weight, but what else does she lose?  Mr. Atkins, the man who revolutionized the first low-carb diet back in the nineties, has since died of a heart attack.  Perhaps limiting fats and eating carbs in moderation is a better way to live.  By limiting fats and consuming more vegetables and whole grain carbs like sweet potatoes and whole wheat, a dieter reduces calorie consumption, a time-tested way to lose weight, while also staying healthy.

Another excuse that dieters will use to follow prescribed fad diets like NutriSystem and Jenny Craig is that they are easy to follow.   The food is pre-portioned, prepackaged, and prescribed.  There is no thinking involved.  Even with the latest Paleo-type diets, recipes and communities of followers sharing lists of dos and don'ts help dieters to eat what they're told without having to think.   The trouble with not thinking about what is being eaten, however, is that it deprives dieters of the opportunity to build a healthy lifestyle.  For example, I've watched my mother-in-law spend thousands of dollars filling her pantry with prescribed meals from NutriSystem, Jenny Craig, and Weight Watchers.  She sometimes loses weight when she restricts her diet to these frozen and freeze-dried meals, but the weight never stays off.  Eventually, my mother-in-law is faced with making her own food choices, and because she had only eaten prepackaged meals while she was dieting, she never learned to make the right choices.  Once off of a weight-loss plan like NutriSystem, she typically goes back to consuming large portions of her favorite high-fat foods again and consequently gains back all the weight.  The only way to ensure weight loss and a healthy body is consume moderate amounts of a variety of foods.  Apps like MyFitnessPal provide caloric and nutritional information about the food items users enter, so they can track their calories and make sure they are getting the right nutrition.  Learning to make healthy choices is part of living.  Prescribed fad diets deprive dieters of this opportunity to maintain healthy habits.

Losing weight is very important to so many Americans, especially since the U.S. has one of the highest obesity rates in the world, but fad diets are not the answer to losing that weight.  While restrictive and prescriptive diets might be easy, fun, and fruitful; they can do more harm than good.  For the sake of our health over time, we need to ditch the fad diets and adopt healthy, sensible eating habits that limit calories while providing the greatest nutrition.  One can just as easily become obsessed with health as with a flash-in-the-pan diet trend.  And it is clear which one will pay off in the future.

Source: Egan, Sophie. "Paleo, Keto, Fasting, Whole 30: Why Food Tribes are on the Rise." Washington Post. 16 May 2018

EXERCISE 2: Fill in this outline for the essay “Watching What We Eat”

I.  Introduction

A.  General Information/ background about the issue: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

B. Thesis Statement (writer’s position): ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

II. Body 

A. Opposing Argument: __Popular diets and apps provide social community____________

details: ________________________________________________________________

Writer’s response: ________________________________________________________________

details: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

B. Opposing Argument: ________________________________________________________________

details: ________________________________________________________________

Writer’s response: ____These diets can cause physical harm

details: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

C. Opposing Argument: __Popular diets and apps are easy to follow

details: ________________________________________________________________

Writer’s response: ________________________________________________________________

details: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

III. Conclusion

Restate thesis: ________________________________________________________________

Summarize reasons: ________________________________________________________________

Recommendation/Prediction: _____________________________________________________________________