Benton City residents have adoptedhealthier lifestyles. A recent survey of city residents shows that the eatinghabits of city residents conform more closely to government nutritionalrecommendations than they did ten years ago. During those ten years, localsales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific studyhas shown reduces cholesterol, have increased fourfold, while sales of sulia, afood rarely eaten by the healthiest residents, have declined dramatically.Because of these positive changes in the eating habits of Benton Cityresidents, we predict that the obesity rate in the city will soon be well belowthe national average.
Write a response in which you discuss whatquestions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the predictionand the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain howthe answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
A recent survey of Benton City residents suggest the eating habits of local people have more conformed to government nutritional recommendations,which indicate the percentage of obesity population in this city could reducebelow the national average soon. That may looks like a good news for dearfellows in Benton City, but before the celebration (After long time effort of boycott to junk food), several questions must be answered to exam whether this conclusion is reliable or not.
At first, many puzzles laid in the survey itself: what is the scaleof survey? Who are the objects of this survey? And what is the method employed in the survey? To make a clear mind on the meaning of the survey, these information are necessary for readers to know. A cogent conclusion can never come out from a plausible survey, and that is the basic questions waiting foranswer.
After the detail of survey being clear, we should ask what is thereal meaning of these survey data? According to the paragraph, the survey compares sales of kiran (a healthy food), and sulia (a food rarely eaten by healthy residents). But does ‘food rarely consume by healthy residents’ directly point to an unhealthy food? Also, no additional information to suggest these two foods are typical used standard to identify healthy or unhealthy debt. In common sense, comparing the sales of only two foods is not enough to determinethe overall debt habits of residents. To answer the suspension on the meaning of survey result, reasons must be provided why choosing these two foods as criteria of healthy debit.
If the survey is reliable and the result really point out to the improvement of healthy debt, the conclusion about the obesity rate is still fragile. An unhealthy debt may not directly relate to obesity, depends on the definition of ‘healthy debt’. If the obesity group in Benton City is already huge in scale, healthy debt habit may not have sufficient effect to reduce the obesity population, as the survey claimed, to lower than the national average. Obesity is affected by complex reasons not limited to debt but other factors, the conclusion can only be sound if the debt habit is proved as the main reason of the obesity in Bendon City, and hat isthe final question waiting to answer before we accept the the good news fromthe newspaper author.
After all, conducting such survey on the debt habit of local residents is still meaningful if it follow the suitable manner and with cautious review on the survey result. But to make a reliable conclusion fromthose survey results, question shown above have to be point out on the logic flow, which is essential and necessary for a cogent inductive reasoning.