Obesity Paradox

Harriet Brown, an American writer and editor, wrote this article for the New York Times about the obesity paradox. She describes how this mystifying topic is prevalent in today's society. An example she gives is that diabetes patients of normal weight are twice as more likely to die as patients who are overweight or obese. She goes on in her article to describe why this is happening using research and statistics. One of the explanations she gives is that when a chronic disease develops the body needs more calories. Therefore an overweight patient has more of those "reserves" or extra calories to help sustain them. This article disproves many conceptions about obesity and health.

The exigence of the article is that the author wanted to discredit any pre-conceptions about obesity and health because, according to Harriet Brown, it is culturally embedded in all of us to think of those two things, when side by side, as bad. The purpose of the article is to inform people of new medical research that "thinner may be sicker". The intended audience  are average normal American people who do not know a whole lot about the medical world and who are reading this article to become informed.

Harriet Brown use jargon, logos, and oversimplification.

I think Harriet Brown did get her message through in her article. The topic that she is talking about is way more complicated than she is making it out to be. By oversimplifying the obesity paradox, I was able to understand what she was talking about and further believe what she was saying. Also, she used a lot of big and long medical terms. Through this jargon, the article sounded more sophisticated and I was more prompted to take what she was saying seriously. Lastly, she used a lot of statistics and research throughout her entire article. Harriet also cited many medical professional and scientists from prominent universities such as Northwestern University. By backing up what she was saying, her article became credible. Through all of these things, Harriet Brown got her message across that there are misconceptions about obesity and health to the reader.