The Problem with Fat Talk by Renee Engeln - Article Analysis Essay

Introduction

Women are usually dissatisfied with the shape of their body regardless of how perfect it is compared to others. One such woman is my cousin Jessica. She has an ideal body shape, but the moment another girl passes by or appears on the television, she is always adoring her and insisting on how perfect her body is. Jessica is among the third portion of women in America who are severely affected by fat talk. An opinion established by Engeln (2015) associated the fat talk with severe effects such as shame and dissatisfaction with their bodies and suggested that the menace ought to be controlled to safeguard the women's confidence. Englen introduces her story by creating a sense of credibility with the use of reputable sources, citing resounding facts, and successfully incorporates the use of pathos appeal across her article; however, she fails to effectively engage with the audience through rhetorical questions, which weakens her article and argument.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Englen in her article starts by describing the move by Facebook to eliminate the "feeling fat" emoticon from the status updates lineup after a petition was filed. She further questions the necessity of the step, suggesting that sometimes it yields positive responses from the participants (Engeln, 2015). However, after deep consideration, she agrees that its wrong after considering the effects of fat talk. Through the analysis of various surveys, she highlights that the fat talk has proved to affect women of all ages. With such results, Engeln suggests that the fat conversation has to be changed in either way to do good to women.

Engeln utilizes several and strong sources as a means of enhancing the credibility, appeal for the ethos and create a foundation for her argument. She uses sources such as the psychology of Women Quarterly, which indicated the number of women engaging in fat talk, the Journal of Health Psychology, which stated the average age that engaged in fat talk (Engeln, 2015). Additionally, she utilized the Journal of Sex Roles to subject selected women in fat talk and identify their reactions. Through the use of such credible and strong sources, Engeln has been able to prove her ethicality and showing to them that her article is worth reading.

Moreover, she has been able to utilize resounding facts and statistics to ensure that her information has a progressive representation of ideas and also appeal for logos from the audience. She highlights facts such as the response awarded to the "I am so fat" emoticon, such as "me too" and "You are beautiful the way you are." Additionally, she outlines statistics such as the number of women engaged in fat talk in college, which comprises of 90% of the population, regardless of the fact that only 9% were overweight. The same study highlighted that women between the ages 16 to 70 are actively engaged in fat talk (Engeln, 2015). Additionally, in her controlled experiment, she emphasizes that a third of the participants involved in the discussion despite their perfect body shape. The utilization of such data establishes a logical presentation of ideas in the article to indicate how women are affected by the fat talk.

Engeln has successfully incorporated the use of pathos appeal across her article from the beginning to the end. She introduces pathos in the article through the use of emotionally-charged words and phrases that depicts a sympathetic image into the audience which enables them to be engaged in the entire discussion (Selzer, 2003). In the opening of the article, she suggests that by participating in fat talk can make an individual feel bad or perceive their body as imperfect. She also adds that fat talk initiate shame thus makes the affected adopt unhealthy eating disorders and behavior amongst women (Engeln, 2015). Moreover, toward the end of the article, she suggests that involvement in the talk brings the sense of dissatisfaction amongst the participants. Such appeals initiate an emotional reaction from the audience, thus invoking sympathy and pity thus prompting action to end the fat talk among individuals in social networks and groups.

Notably, she has not sufficiently engaged the audience mentally across her article through the utilization of rhetorical questions randomly in the text. These questions are utilized to ensure that the audience does not get bored or lose focus throughout the reading (Hogenboom, Frasincar, de Jong, & Kaymak, 2015). Engeln begins the analysis by posting the question Is it such a big deal if you tell everyone how fat you feel? Additionally, she also utilizes it in the same paragraph to suggest that positive response from the "I am Fat" emoticon helps an individual or others to feel better. Such appeals ensure that the audience is always glued to the conversation even without the provision of actual responses (Engeln, 2015). Hence, Engeln utilizes it to trigger mental participation and interaction with the audience. However, she has failed to incorporate such appeals and approach across the article. This reduces the functionality of the attention-seeking cue, thus rendering the article and the argument inefficient.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Englen introduces her story by creating a sense of credibility with the use of reputable sources, citing resounding facts, and successfully incorporated the use of pathos appeal across her article; however, she fails to effectively engage with the audience through rhetorical questions, which weakens her article and argument. The readers can identify the adverse effects of the fat talk across the women population, which is made possible through the incorporation of ethos, pathos, and logos across the text. Additionally, the article has successfully established the need for the elimination of fat talk and emoticon to protect women against dissatisfaction and insecurity with their bodies.

References

Engeln, R. (2015). Opinion: The Problem With 'Fat Talk.' Nytimes.com. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/the-perils-of-fat-talk.html.

Hogenboom, A., Frasincar, F., de Jong, F., & Kaymak, U. (2015). Using rhetorical structure in sentiment analysis. Communications of the ACM, 58(7), 69-77. https://doi.org/10.1145/2699418

Selzer, J. (2003). Rhetorical analysis: Understanding how texts persuade readers. In What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices (pp. 279-307). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410609526