Hillel Schwartz Fat And Happy

In Fat and Happy?, Hillel Schwartz is examining the arguments over obesity and the effectiveness of its treatments. Schwartz mortifyingly claims in his article, that a fat society would be a preferable culture to live in. He uses biased arguments and unsupported information to back his views against the overweight society. He does state some information that is defended by evidence but much of his statements require further confirmation. Schwartz sways his readers opinions over the causes of obesity and the efficiency of its cures using logical fallacies and personal attitudes.

Schwartz claims that members of the society who are in good physical shape are the cause of unhappiness among obese people. He says that by labeling obese people as clowns, cannibals, and clodhoppers, they are causing more shame and humiliation than an obese individual would experience from being overweight alone. People that make comments such as, To be fat is the end of life (Schwartz 380), only make them more miserable. These are all accurate points that Schwartz makes but most would consider this apparent logic.

One of the logical fallacies Schwartz uses is hasty generalization. Schwartz claims that overweight people are not able to excel in school and/or in their careers. The writer has
He believes that if everyone were fat, obesity would not be referred to as a minority. The labeling and name-calling would come to a halt and less discrimination would occur. The society would prefer the good as opposed to the bad. In his argument, Schwartz uses Non Sequitur to provide reason behind his idea. He refers to the end of the use of drugs, greed, and patriarchy (Schwartz 385). Schwartz believes that all of these problems would be solved if we lived in a purely obese society but his claim lacks logic because there is no guarantee that people would not use drugs and women would become the dominate