The following appeared in the health section of a magazine on trends and lifestyles:"People who use the artificial sweetener aspartame are better off consuming sugar, since aspartame can actually contribute to weight gain rather than weight loss. For exam

The conclusion of this argument is that people should consume sugar rather than artificial sweetener aspartame because aspartame can actually contribute to weight gain. The line of the reasoning is that aspartame will trigger the people’s hunger feeling, while studies show that sugar can enhance the body’s ability to burn fat if it’s taken after 45 minutes continuous exercise. I found that this argument is not convincing, however, the reasons are as following:

First of all, it’s cited that high level of aspartame will trigger a craving of food but the author didn’t explain what level it is exactly. It could be possible that the threshold of the level to trigger a craving of food is much higher than the amount that would be consumed by a normal person every day. As most of people who consumes aspartame is not likely to over-consume such level to trigger a craving of food, this line of reasoning is not convincing to show aspartame is bad for weigh loss.

Moreover, the author mentioned that sugar could help those who exercise for more than 45 minutes continuously to burn their fat, so it’s concluded that sugar is more helpful than aspartame on burning fats. However, the author overlooks the group of people who don’t exercise for more than 45 minutes. In reality, there’s a lot of people who is not able to exercise for more than 45 minutes, but still want to lose weight by taking less calories or taking something that helps them to burn calories. As there’s no evidence to show that sugar will also benefit for those who do not exercise for more than 45 minutes, the author’s conclusion is not sounded.

Finally, this author did not mention any benefit of consuming aspartame, rather he just mentioned the benefit of consuming sugar. One must not forget, the amount of calories consumed is always the main concern of those who want to achieve their dietary goals. And it’s well known that artificial sweetener aspartame contains less calories than sugar at the same amount. So it’s more likely for people to gain weight by taking sugar if they don’t exercise after consuming it. The author should also take this factor into consideration when illustrating the benefit of sugar.

In sum, this argument is not convincing as it omitted many other factors that should be addressed. To make a proper conclusion, the author would have to eliminate the possibilities that sugar will make people more likely to gain weight than aspartame.