Obesity in America

Obesity in America
Christian J. Rodriguez Cabral
University of Texas at El Paso

Obesity in the United States

Obesity in America has in recent times started to become an issue, and affects numerous
amounts of people in ten citizens in the USA. Despite there being ways to prevent obesity,
unfortunately it is still a problem. In the documentary The Weight of the Nation: Poverty and
Obesity by HBO Docs, they take an in depth look at the correlation of economic class and
obesity, and use all 3 forms of ethos, pathos, logos to distribute the facts and awareness they
want for their audience. Aside from the documentary, in an article by Food Research and Action
Center or FRAC named Obesity in the U.S.. In which logos is appealed to the most since the
article is baked upon delivering facts and statistics to the reader. Both of the sources do provide
enough facts for one audiences in order to inform them about this epidemic across the states, and

2
Obesity in America

do so by using pathos, logos and ethos to appeal to the audience, and to get their information
across to the audience better.
In the documentary The Weight of the Nation: Poverty and Obesity, goes into detail
about how poverty and obesity both correlate with each other and essentially feed off of one
another. For instance, in the documentary it is mentioned by Elssa Epel (Co-Director, Center for
Obesity Assessment) in the lower income areas, the locals tend to be surrounded with fast food
restaurants such as Popeyes, Kfc, etc. and fresher Morris healthier foods tend to be more
difficult to attain in this area leading to a higher percentage of obesity and a lower life
expectancy as well.
Ethos
The document also uses ethos to establish their credibility very well by getting their
information from reliable sources such as professors from university who are studying such
things or directors of program s who study obesity and its affects, for example, America Bracho
who is the executive director of Latino Access Health informs the audience and attempts to
convince the audience that obesity is an epidemic in America and needs to be stopped. By doing
so it knocks out two birds with one stone because it use ethos and logos at the same time and it
relays its ideas very well. By using the ethos strategy the documentary establishes its credibility
by giving the audience facts so it is more believable and more effective.
Pathos
While the documentary does a great job appealing to ethos and logos, it also use pathos
by letting the audience know that obesity tends to lessen the life expectancy drastically. Greatest
example being that in Baltimore Maryland there is a location named Inner Harbor and their life

3
Obesity in America

expectancy would be 62 years old and then further down the road in Northern Baltimore the life
expectancy sky rockets to 82 years old. The change in life expectancy is immaculate and
definitely appeals to pathos since the cause of that difference is almost entirely to obesity, so by
informing the audience that their life expectancy will drastically change due to obesity it makes
them feel the need to lose weight, and choose a better/healthier lifestyle. Aside from that since
the audience does feel the need to lose weight and change their lifestyle it will spark the want
and feeling of need to change the infrastructure of their neighborhood and perhaps make the need
to get healthier food options in their areas to prevent obesity. Another form of pathos used in the
documentary was appealing to the emotions of parents by saying that obesity nearly affects 18
percent of children. So appealing to parents emotions it does indeed use pathos to get its point
across, and does so very well, because parents do love their children very much.

Logos
The director of the documentary made sure it was a very reliable source of information
by providing credible sources such as professors or head directors of research centers
specializing in obesity rates. For example, Bill Paul who is the director of Metro Health gives the
audience information about those having diabetes due to obesity and their chances going up
because of obesity. Because they use credible sources like that, it makes the documentary a
reliable source of information so it could be used in as an argument as well. Which makes Logos
very dominant in the documentary.
Obesity in the U.s

4
Obesity in America

The Food Research and Action Center published an article on their website titled
Obesity in the Us. takes many numerous amounts of sources and compiles them in their article
to be able to provide information about the spike in obesity rates in the Usa. Aside from just the
rates it also goes into detail what demographics it affects the most and if there is any changes
amongst the different groups, similar to the documentary previously mentioned. The article uses
mostly ethos and logos to provide their information and doesnt use pathos as much as the
documentary did, but does have the same audience the documentary did. Reason being is they
are both trying to aware the general population or those concerned with the rapid weight gain and
those it affects to try and prevent the percentage of those affected by obesity.
Ethos
The articles main purpose is to provide the readers with facts about obesity rates in the
Usa. With this being said, it does a great job using ethos since it informs the audience. For
example, when the article begins to go more into detail about what demographics obesity affects
most, it gives this fact, Recent national data show that 82.0 percent of Black women and 77.2
percent of Hispanic women are overweight or obese... By giving the audience this fact its using
ethos to be able to be more reliable. Using ethos makes it more reliable and also complements
the logos used as well.
Logos
Since the article has very good use of ethos, the logos definitely can be seen by the
readers. After almost every amount of data given, there is a source from where the data has been
gotten from. Primary example of this being in the first paragraph, the article opens up with given
a fact, and then citing it from the National Center for Health Statistics, 2009. Even given the year

5
Obesity in America

the information was published from the prior article, given the source relevance to the year the
Obesity in America was published as well. Also aside from just given simple facts, the article
also provides the reader graphs about statistics of obesity rates during certain years. Also citing
where the graphs were gotten from. By giving that kind of information and citing it, the article
establishes itself credible to its audience thus using logos to make it a reliable source of
information.
Pathos
The articles main focal point in using rhetorical strategies would mostly be ethos and
logos. The publisher definitely wanted to go for more of a. informative article rather than appeal
to the emotions of the audience. Thus given the article no pathos strategies used because it
doesnt need to allure an audience with emotions.
Audience and Purpose of both Genres
Both the genres focus was to inform its audience of obesity rates in the Usa. They saw the
need to do this because obesity affects a good portion of the population and wanted to give
awareness of it since it leads to many health problems of those it affects. Both do inform in
different ways using different rhetorical strategies but none the less do it in a very good manor.
The audiences however are the same, the audience being those who are actually interested in this
epidemic because it is very noticeable everywhere.
Conclusion
Both genres did a good job as distributing information but the documentary by Hbo Docs
did do a better job at using rhetorical strategies to inform the audience than the website. Because
the article simply gave the audience facts and didnt really use any pathos to make their audience

6
Obesity in America

feel like obesity was an immense issue. Meanwhile the documentary conveyed the problem so
much better thus given the sense of obesity being an issue needed to be stopped or decrease the
percentage of those affected because it has many negative outcomes on those affected.

7
Obesity in America

References

Hoffman, J. (Producer) (2012). The Weight of the Nation: Poverty and Obesity [Motion

Picture on Documentary]. United States: HBO Docs

Obesity in the U.S. (Food Research & Action Center. (n.d.) Retrieved February 18, 2016,
from http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/obesity-in-the-us

8
Obesity in America