Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas wher

The author states that since residents of Plainsville are interested in a healthy life, having a branch of Nature's Way is profitable in this town. But in his arguments assumptions are implicit and in some cases wrong perhaps. Here, I would like to review some of the reasons that why these assumptions might be flawed.

First of all, when the author states that merchants report a high rate of buying sport clothes and shoes, he apparently assumes that purchasing sport related products necessarily means caring more about health and tendency toward buying health-related products, as well. But another possibility exists. For example, if high schools in the town force the students to buy a special set of sport clothes and shoes apart from what they already have, to probably increase the order in school, this could be the reason of high purchase rate. Besides, in his argument the authors, is assuming that sport is the only part of leading a healthy life. However, there are other things such as eating habits, the type of food and drinks used by families and caring about hygiene, that might have a more important role in a healthy life.

Second of all, the author assumes that being member of health club will lead to becoming a customer of health products. It is very likely that, for example, the main issue that this club is dealing with is pollution caused by cars and traffic problems, and in such case there is no relation between this club and the profitablity of the Nature’s Way store. Besides, both when the author mentions health club and aerobics classes he provides no evidence that they are always popular and full. The author, perhaps, after seeing some weight training classes has concluded that other classes are crowded as well. And even if this not the case the arguments reasoning in this part is flawed and not enough data has been presented.

Finally, even if we assume that people of the town care about health, still some assumptions are missing about the fitness program for schoolchildren. The author undoubtedly is implying that putting children in such programs can make them to leave a healthy life in the future. However, no information about this program is presented. It is possible that the program has very strict scheduling and forces to kids to train every day. In this case, it might cause them to become reluctant to fitness and similar stuff in the future.

All in all, the argument could have become stronger by giving more information and providing related assumptions while the author is concluding about people being interested in a healthy life. Besides, he should have clarified the link between his observations and the profitability of the store. But in its current state it is filled with flawed assumptions and it prevents the argument to be as effective as the author desires.