Argument145 让砖头来得更猛烈些吧！

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Argument145 让砖头来得更猛烈些吧！
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A new study collected data that shows that people who snore are more likely to gain weight than are people who do not snore. It is well known that many people who snore also stop breathing frequently during the night for a few seconds, a condition called sleep apnea. The interruption of breathing wakes the person—often so briefly that the waking goes unnoticed—and can leave the person too tired during the day to exercise. Anyone who snores, therefore, should try to eat less than the average person and to exercise more.
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In this article, citing the results of a study concerning with the relation between snoring and overweight, the author recommends that the people who snore should eat less and have more exercise. Unfortunately, through a review of the cited study, I cast doubt on the validity of the recommendation.

First and foremost, owing to multiple methodological flaws including ignorance of sample size, lack of standardized inclusion/exclusion criteria, and the, the results of the study might be unreliable. First, the number of people participating in the study is left out of discussion to evaluate whether the sample size is sufficient to represent the average population as a whole. As a basic statistical principle points out, if the sample size increases from 100 to 1000, the margin error of the results would decrease form 10% to 3%. Therefore, the relation between snoring and overweight might be mistaken for lose related while the two might actually be irrelevant to each other. Second, the inclusion/exclusion criteria might be attributed to the fading away of the reliability of the study. Lack of basic information about the participants, it is highly possible that the majority of the participants suffers from overweight due to the other reason such as overeating, genetic flaws and lack of exercises. Meanwhile the gender, age and careers of the participants are left out of consideration as well. Without such crucial information, it is equally possible that the people whose weights are above normal level should be attributed to other factors instead of snoring.

Additionally, the mere fact that many people who experience sleep apnea during snoring hardly suffices to prove that all people suffer from sleep apnea. The concept 'many' is vague and precise data is in need to clarify the actual proportion of patients who experience sleep apnea versus who do not. Possibly, even if the number of sleep apnea patients is vast, the total number of people who snore is far larger. Therefore, the majority of the snorers might seldom experience sleep apnea during snoring. Up to this point, the author's suggestion for all the snorers is invalid.

Furthermore, the association of sleep apnea and tiredness is unwarranted. For one thing, as has been pointed out in the article, the waking is too briefly to be noticed. Hence, it is entirely possible that the people might still obtain enough rest from sleeping. For another, since the waking is largely unnoticed, people are unlikely to know they feel more tired as the result of the sleep apnea. Possibly, other factors may prevent them from obtaining enough sleep such as waking up too early or a change of time schedule. In a word, the author must endeavor to preclude the alternative explanation for the tiredness at the morning. Even though the brief weakening lead to tiredness at the morning, the author’s deduction that people tend to have less exercise when they feel tired is unreliable. It is entirely possible that people who exercise regularly still stick to their customs and continue to have sport even when they fail to have enough sleep.

Finally, the recommendation that the snorers should eat less and have more sports than average population is invalid in several aspects. First, as the people who are deprived of enough sleep might need enough energy and nutrition to sustain their normal functioning. And reduce of their intake could lead to some predictable side effects including worsening health and low level of brain activities. Second, the author assumes that the snores tend to have less sport than they need. Nonetheless, no evidence has been pointed out to warrant the assumption. Hence, it is highly possible that people who have enough sports tend to sleep so sound that they begin to snore at night.

In sum, the argument suffers from multiple logical fallacies and the recommendation sounds unpersuasive to me. To bolster the recommendation, the author should adopt reliable methods in his further studies to demonstrate the relation between snoring and tiredness. Then he should further carry out investigation into the sports habit of the snorers before any sound recommendation could be proposed.