Rhetorical Analysis

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What You Eat Is Your Business Reedley Balko’s “What You Eat Is Your Business” first appeared on Cato.org. In his article, Balko aims to convince his readers that diet, exercise, and personal health should be kept personal, and that the government should not get involved. He expresses his opinion, uses logos and ethos to back up his view, and additionally provides a solution to the problem. The article begins by providing a short biography about the author. Balko holds the position of senior editor at Reason, and specializes in investigative writing on civil liberties and criminal justice issues. The fact that he is also a columnist for FoxNews.com and that he has contributed to the Washington Post and Playboy, help to build ethos because these are well known publications. He starts out by announcing a special program called “How To Get Fat Without Really Trying”, an even that he calls “a pep rally for media, nutrition activists, and policy makers – all agitating for a panoply of government anti obesity initiatives… and prodding the food industry into more ‘responsible’ behavior”. This attracts the audience to want to read more about the issue. Balko then continues and uses logos to explain to the audience what is going on with the personal health issue. He provides examples of politicians putting aside money for anti obesity measures, politicians calling for a “fat tax” that would be applied on high calorie foods, and even legislation that would force restaurants to send every menu item for nutritional testing. He shows the audience the measures taken by the government regarding public health then continues to state his opinion on why it shouldn’t be the way it is. His opinion in the essay is that people’s diets and personal health should be left personal, and that the government needs to find a way to encourage people to live healthy. He states that

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