argument essay

The argument claims that sugar is better than the artificial sweetener aspartame in order to achieve dietary goals. Further, the argument also claims that aspartame is a substance which helps to gain weight and not to reduce weight. The argument cites a reason to support stating that high levels of aspartame trigger to crave for food by depleting the brain. The argument also states that when sugar is taken after 45 minutes of exercise, it helps the body to burn fat, which is not the result when aspartame is taken. The author also says that aspartame infact loses the power to burn calories, when taken after exercising. The argument manipulates facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation. Hence, the argument is weak and has several flaws.

Firstly, The argument readily assumes that because high levels of aspartame trigger the brain to crave for food, it is the aspartame intake only which helps the body to gain weight. The conclusion according to the statement is aspartame is the sole factor for the weight gain issue. This is clearly an invalid assumption because it might be possible that if high levels are consumed, then only the problem of weight gain arises, not when taken as prescribed by a doctor or a nutritionalist. The argument might have been much clearer if the author had expilicitly stated about the quantity of aspartame to be consumed.

Secondly, this is again a weak assumption according to me that aspartame juices taken after continuous exercise will not help in buring the calories, instead sugar helps in this particular situation. There are many other ingredients in a juice which might be responsible for not burning the calories of a body, therefore only aspartame cannot be blamed for that. In addition to this, it could also be possible that any such ingredient in the juice is sugar, which is responsible for this problem. If the argument had mentioned about the ingredients of the juices taken after exercising, then there were chances of assessing some merits. Without unconvincing answers to the questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than a substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed due to the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could have been considerably strengthened if the author had given any other reasons which could have helped in evaluating the argument in a broader sense. In this particular argument, without much contributing factors, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.