By: Times of Trenton Editorial Board
In this Editorial, from the New Jersey News, the author uses several techniques of rhetoric including diction, imagery, and details to convey his/her point that obesity among children is an ongoing issue that needs to be resolved.
This author, who since unnamed will be referred to as he, chooses his words carefully to describe the troubling issue of obesity among children. For instance, when discussing potential prevention's for this issue, he sates the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working on "combating childhood obesity." The use of combating here adds a more intense feeling and makes the reader sense that there is an actual war between children and obesity. Another instance when the author uses diction to get to emphasize his point is at the very end in the last sentence, "the best ambassadors for the initiative may be the children who bring the message home along with crisp apples and crunchy carrot sticks." The detailed descriptions of the fruits; the crisp apples and crunchy carrot sticks help to add appeal to these healthy snacks that are available for children to eat, especially the reader's children.
Imagery also plays a large role in this article to make it more convincing and appealing to the readers. When describing the traps that children fall into when they usually eat the unhealthy foods, the author states, "when children run into the corner store for an after-school snacks and see racks of trans-fat laden chips and cookies in bright, convenient packaging, that's their immediate choice." When reading this, the reader is immediately able to envision any gas station or small store they have entered and either fallen victim to this food "trap" or have seen others do it. This tool of imagery is powerful in this case because it really helps drive to the point at how often children are exposed to unhealthy choices, and unfortunately, they are usually the easier and quicker ones. The author goes on to argue that healthy snacks can be just as appealing and kids will be more likely to choose them if they are positioned in "refrigerated cases with fresh fruits and vegetables where they catch the kids' attention." This invites the reader to picture vibrant fruit and vegetables in place of where the usually unhealthy snacks sit in a small store and allows them to see how this could work and be beneficial.
Lastly, this author includes many details including survey results and other statistics in order to more deeply portray his point. Near the beginning of the article, the author states "Federal health officials estimate eliminating trans fats from the U.S. food supply could prevent at least 20,000 heart attacks each year." This statistic most likely catches the attention of many of the readers, for unfortunately heart attacks are not that uncommon so any form of prevention is very appealing. Further on in the article the author gives some exact statistics from a survey based off of kids in the Trenton School System, "school-aged children face a 49 percent obesity rate, while 22 percent of kids ages 3 to 18 eat less than one full serving of vegetables daily and 40 percent do not eat enough fruit." These stats come off as very alerting and cause the reader to want to do something about them immediately. The details in this article have a large impact and without them it would lose a lot of its warning and urgency to fix the problem of child obesity.
This article was written primarily to inform readers of how severe and wide spread child obesity is and that people need to start helping to prevent it very soon. The author's use of diction, imagery, and details help to enforce this urgency and show that it needs to be stopped.
Hey Sarena, nice post! I like how you have a clear thesis and stick to it. This essay is well organized and easy to follow. One thing I noticed, especially in your paragraph on diction, is that you seem to just be naming isolated examples of DIDLS in the work. I think it would help you prove your point better if you tied some of these examples together and say general techniques the author uses that these examples support. For example, you could talk about how the author uses mostly colloquial diction, and whether it's specific and/or concrete, and then talk about what effect this has on the work as a whole. Other than that, good job!
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