Article: "Woman to hand out 'obese letters' to overweight
children on Halloween"
I read an article on www.foxnews.com about a North Dakota woman
who is planning on handing out letters to young trick-or-treaters she deems are
overweight. Part of her letter states, “…it takes a village to raise a child...your
child is, in my opinion, moderately obese…my hope is that you will step up as a
parent…” yet is left unsigned. When asked
why she doesn’t hand out other items,
such as toys/stickers, etc…she claims
she doesn’t want to be the “mean lady” in the neighborhood and “doesn’t plan to
deny candy to any of the children”.
I believe her argument could be seen as a value or policy
claim as this is her opinion (without specific facts to make it a fact based
claim) and sounds like her ultimate goal is to “help” change the health of some
children in her neighborhood. My big
issue with this is her lack of Kairos or knowing the full context including her
audience, medium (sending an unsigned accusatory letter) and not having any
full history of these families or children.
Although this is her 1st
Amendment right of free speech, I don’t believe Halloween is the best occasion
to state her argument in this type of manner.
How could she possibly know everything going on with the child or the
family…and really know they are overweight/obese without a full
examination? Unless she is a
pediatrician and has met with each child, I would question her Ethos or credibility
on this subject and quite frankly… in my opinion (my 1st amendment
right)…she’s a major “Debbie Downer”!!!
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