Self-study
Health officials claim that because Support the foods and beverages mentioned or consumed on many television programs are extremely low in nutritional value, Conclusion watching television has a bad influence on the dietary habits of television viewers.
Summary
The health officials come to the conclusion that watching television negatively influences viewers’ dietary habits. Why? Because on many television programs, characters eat or discuss foods that are extremely low in nutritional value.
Notable Assumptions
The health officials’ claim links together the foods featured on television with an influence over viewers’ dietary habits, which requires assuming that the content of television programs can in fact influence viewers’ behavior in real life. Specifically, it would need to influence viewers to behave more like what they see on television. Otherwise, there’s no connection between seeing low-nutritional-value foods on television and developing worse dietary habits.
13.
The claim by health officials ███████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ████
a
the eating and ████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████
This is irrelevant to the question of whether the foods featured on television influence viewers’ dietary habits. As in (C), we don’t care why the foods are featured, just what impact they have.
b
seeing some foods ███ █████████ █████ ████████ ███ ██ ███████ ████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████ ████ ███████ ███████ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████████
In other words, seeing low-nutritional-value foods on television leads viewers to eat more of those foods, thus worsening their diets. Without this assumption linking television content to poor dietary habits, the argument wouldn’t make sense.
c
the food and ████████ ████████ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ████████
Like (A), this focuses on the irrelevant consideration of why certain foods are featured on television. But we don’t need to know why, we only need to know if featuring certain foods can impact viewers’ eating habits.
d
television viewers are ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██
Whether or not television characters’ dietary habits are interesting to viewers is irrelevant, because it doesn’t get to whether those dietary habits can actually impact viewers’ own dietary habits.
e
the eating and ████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ████ ████████ ███████████ █████ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ █████ ██████████ ███████
Even if the foods featured on television can help to predict what foods will become popular, that doesn’t tell us that television has a bad influence. To get to that conclusion, we would need to assume that television leads people to eat worse foods, not just different foods.