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 argument for Nature’s Way being successful seems decent enough when looked through in a superficial manner, but further scrutiny reveals the various assumptions made that could prove to be fallacious, including how profitable the franchise will prove to be, the amount of people that that care about being healthy, and equating exercise with healthy food.

The argument states that the store will be successful because it’s usually profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives. This then gives way to a series of reasons why Plainsville residents lead healthy lives. It mentions that sale reports of running shoes and exercise clothing are at an all-time high and assumed that this means residents lead healthy lives. In reality, perhaps only a very few group of people in Plainsville actually exercise, and perhaps these are the ones buying these products. Perhaps not many people in the town exercise at all but a recent athletic couple just moved in and they’re buying much of the equipment, just increasing the town’s sales more than ever. If this were true, then it would do nothing to prove that the store would be successful since it’s just a very few people purchasing these items. This goes hand-in-hand with the statement that the local health club has more members than ever. Perhaps it has never had many members, and now only a few more have signed on that are really active and thus have increased the amount of members more than before. Stating that aerobics classes are always full also stems from the same assumption. The argument makes the assumption that because all of these things (e.g., product sales, club and membership) are seemingly high that it means that the franchise store will prove to be profitable when that may not be the case. Only a few people in the town may care at all about being healthy. Even if more than a few did, more factors would need to be taken into account to determine how profitable the franchise would be, including the costs of a store and all of the entire financial issues that would need to be assessed. These financial factors would need to be assessed to determine if the cost is enough for profitability by taking into account demand for such products in the store. If all of these assumptions were false, the argument would be severely weakened.

The argument also assumes that the children who are taking the fitness-for-life program will grow up to become people preoccupied with their health. Since taking the program is a requirement, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that these children ill care at all about their health when they grow up to be able to buy products from the store. The program may let them know if how beneficial exercise and fitness may be, but to make such an assumption would be egregious. The assumption is especially flawed because to make any assumption about the future is risky. Even if all of these children did grow up to become people who wanted to buy the store’s goods, perhaps others factors had been hindered by then, like the profitability of the store and the costs of keeping it open. Making any assumption about the future is illogical.

As many assumptions as the argument made, they all stem from the most significant, and worst, one. The argument makes the assumption that people who are fit and who exercise also buy healthy food. These are two separate links. Sure, eating healthy food and exercising will go a long ay towards improving one’s health, but they’re separate factors. Nature’s Way may also provide other health related products related to exercise, but perhaps healthy food is their main selling point. Perhaps healthy food is what ahs always provided them with their main source of profit. So then directly making the link between the food and physical fitness is a mistake that would surely completely undermine the argument in many ways. Even if a sizeable portion of Plainsville did exercise, that doesn’t mean they eat healthy. Maybe most of those people exercise because they eat really unhealthy and they feel they need to compensate. There may be tons of people who exercise and who don’t think about what they eat. If this was true and the store’s main source of profit was its food, the argument would have no bearing as to why the franchise store would be successful and profitable.

There are clearly many assumptions made in this argument that could be entirely false. If so, other reasons as to why the franchise would be successful would need to be contemplated. Only if there was a sizeable section of the town that cared about fitness, and those same people cared about both their fitness and eating healthy, would the argument be strongest in.