The following appeared in a health magazine."The citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they

The argument concludes that citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. This conclusion is based on the premise that people are now more closely adhering to government nutritional recommendations and people are using products that are beneficial in reducing cholestrol. The reasoning in the argument is logically flawed, however, as it relies on a number os assumptions which appear to be completely unsupported.

First, the argument assumes that government specified nutritional standards as the sole touchstone for determining the health of people. This statement is a bit understated. There is no clarity on the target citizens of these diet recommendations. Perhaps, these nutritional advices were made for a particular set of people suffering from same disease, or for people having similar nature of occupational hazards. In addition, argument does not consider other factors responsible for good health like regular exercise, yoga practices, sanitation etc. For example, it might be the case that people od Forsythe, though they are on a healthy diet, also are irregular in doing physical workouts, as result their lifestyle cannot be labelled as healthy solely on the basis of diet and nutritional information. Without this convincing evidence on exercise and nature of job, there is no reason to accept the claim in this argument.

Second, the argument ignores the possibility of other common diseases and problems that citizens might be facing. Rather, it focusses only on heart ailments and cholestrol problems. Foe example, it could be the case that there are not many heart patients in the town, so the premise that increased use of Kiran containing products does not justifies the conclusion of people living healthy lifestyle. It could be that people are using these products because of their low cost or easy availability. Also, there could be any other major disease or problem that citizens could be facing; which would certainly not be the indicator of a healthy lifestyle.

Finally, the argument ignores the harmful effects of Sulia. It does not take into consideration the exact reason for decline in its sales. The claim that few healthy citizens eat this product does not strengthen the conclusion unless its nutritional value and effect on citizens are well demarcated. In addition, a particular behaves differently on different people depending upon their age, sex, genetic, nature of job, place of living etc. The argument has failed to consider these factors in projecting its claim of reduced sales of Sulia. Without these information, there is no parameter to gauge the impact of Sulia consumption with better health.

In conclusion, the argument that citizens of the town are living healthy lifestyle is rather weak. There are a numbers of assumptions and untouched suppoting claims which the author has not demonstrated. Without further evidence on these assumptions, there is no reason to accept the conclusion in the argument.