Trinh Ly 

Samantha Bellamy 

English Composition 

13 October 2019 

Rhetorical Analysis of Four Sources on Fast Food Effects 

Introduction 

In USA Today, the article “Fast-food drive-thus are slowing down”, Bruce Horovitz presents his idea of the new growing products of fast food chains drive more consumers to buy. In results, “the amount of time that consumers are spending waiting in lines at fast-food drive-thru windows is getting longer” (Horovitz). He also discusses another reason that lead to the process of drive-thru slowing down is the order accuracy for customer made by workers. Statistic data to support their idea. 

In the website Manufacturing.net, the blog post “McDonald’s Reveals List Of Chemicals In French Fries. Will Anyone Care?” by Meagan Parrish criticizes the amount of ingredients contain in french fries from McDonald’s. Based on Grant Imahara, a former “MythBusters” co-host, visits to a fry processing plant and its birthplace, a potato farm, reveal that “to list all of the ingredients of french fries — all 19 ingredients, in fact.” (Parrish). These ingredients consist of several different kinds of chemicals, cooking oils and preservatives. Not only does Parrish inform us about the amount of ingredients in the french fries, she also predicts the view of the consumers and their reactions even when they now know about what’s their fries consists of at the end. 

In Time, the magazine “Study: Fast Food Calorie Content Has Increased” Tara Law criticizes the amount of calories in fast food has increased over the past three decades. They use many studies to shows the portion sizes for fast food increase over time that lead to the increase of calories and obesity for consumers. 

In the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the article “The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain” by Janet Currie, Stefano Della Vigna, Enrico Moretti, and Vikram Pathania is about if fast food effect obesity rate and weight gain. They look at the study and investigate “how changes in the supply of fast food restaurants affect weight outcomes of 3 million children and 3 million pregnant women.” (Currie). Law then conclude based on the evidence that the effect of fast food and obesity is not strong. 

 

Rhetorical Situation 

The publisher writes about the business of drive-thru to address the issues that customer might face since this business is on a rise. Customer will not be surprise and know what to expect when they want to go for drive thru. The author is credible for using studies and statistic data to support his idea of time increase waiting at fast food drive thru. 

The writer felt the needs for writing a blog post on the chemicals consist in french fries concerning people health. From reading this, people will have a knowledge of what’s in their food and have choices to decide on whether they want to continue to consume it. The blogger also mentions that there are total of 19 ingredients in french fries. The author is credible for using an American-Australian science entertainment television program named MythBusters on Discovery Channel to support her idea. The showcases MythBusters is about testing myths to find out which myths are true, and which are not. 

The author felt the need to write a magazine article about the steadily increased of fast food calories over time. She is concerning about the health of consumers as the calories and sodium content increases over time due to the portion sizes pf fast food increase. The author is credible for using studies and statistic data to support her idea. 

The American Economic Journal Association published a journal about “The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain” based on the public debate of fast food restaurants effect the obesity rates. The authors did studies using children, ninth graders, and pregnant women to see how changes in the supply of fast food restaurant affects weight outcome then compared them. The outcome shows there are no relationship between fast food restaurants and obesity. They have no effect on each other. 

 

The Purpose  

The USA Today newspaper aim to inform fast food drive thru customers about the situation of time increased waiting for drive-thru purchase. The author records the reason might be due to accuracy orders made by employee of the restaurant. He then supports it with statistic data of “2013 has not been the industry’s best year in order accuracy, either. Order accuracy for drive-thru meals for the industry was at 87.2% this year vs. 88.8% last year. The chain ranking highest in accuracy: Chick-fil-A at 91.6%. The lowest was Burger King at 82.3%.” The inaccuracy holds up the line and increase drive-thru time. 

On the other hand, the blog and the magazine article aim to inform and warn the consumers about the effect of fast food. The blog exposed the “list of 19 ingredients” in french fries from McDonald’s. “This list consists of various chemicals, cooking oils and preservatives. list all of the ingredients of french fries — all 19 ingredients, in fact.” (Parrish). As well as the magazine articles exposed the portion of fast food and sodium content increased that might lead to obesity. “Researchers found that, on average, the calorie content of entrees went up by 30 calories a decade, while the calorie content of desserts went up by 62 calories a decade.”(Law). The author tone is serious in warning us about the calories increase and used research data to support their idea. Both authors of the two sources concern about the health of the consumers. The blog end with “Fries are amazing … For what, like seven minutes? And then they turn into something that’s likely not bio-degradable. You ever make the mistake of reheating McDonald’s fries in the microwave? They become packing peanuts.” (Parrish) The author is being sarcastic about how long the french fries can last before it’s gone bad. 

The scholarly source of journal aims to investigate if fast food restaurants affect weight outcomes. They did many studies and research on 3 million ninth grader and 3 million pregnant women to finally conclude that “Non-fast food restaurants and future fast-food restaurants are uncorrelated with weight outcomes.” The conclusion opposed the blog and magazine article view.  

 

The Audience  

The audiences of the four sources are very diverse. The audience for the website might be the people who often visit and browse that website. Similar to the website, the magazine articles audients will be the people who often visit or read articles but also be interesting in health and diet topic 

However, the audience of the scholarly sources of a journal will be those who doing research and interesting in the topic or writing a paper and needs scholar sources for evidence to support their claims. It is a research-based journals with studies and statistic data to proof an idea. 

 

The Genre 

The genre of newspaper article is about business. This article is being delivered mostly using studies and facts to support the author idea. 

The genre of the second source is blog post on manufacturing website. The language used in the blog post is simple to deliver their idea so everyone can understand. There is a comment section under for people to share their thoughts about the blog post and the topic of the blog. 

The article from Time is a study of health and diet magazine article. The author used many studies to her claim and idea in the article. A lot of studies, facts are used to compare and support what the author say. 

The genre of the last source is an economic journal. This paper mainly shows the research study and process. It includes an abstract that summarizes its content and the research study result. 

 

The Stance 

Despite of the fact that four articles are from different sources and genre, three out of the four articles have similar stance that criticize fast food and its effects. The website/blog, newspaper article and magazines article all show critical toward fast food effect. While the scholarly source of journal was written mostly based on facts of research. There’s not much of the author point of view or position being shows. It’s just analyzing the process and wrote down based of off it. 

The newspaper article criticizes about the issue of longer waiting time at drive-thru purchase. “Customers will be patient if you give them hot, accurate orders” (Horovitz). The author is being critical about the possible reason that lead to a longer waiting time at drive through. The blog/website criticizes about the ingredients and chemicals in the food we consume. “So for many, the comparison only raised more questions about the fry ingredients, such as: If these ingredients aren’t used in the UK, why are they needed here?” (Parrish) The author is curious to why only U.S. french fries consists of so much unnecessary ingredients that other countries don’t include.  

 

 

Work Cited 

1. Chem.Info, Meagan Parrish Editor. “McDonald’s Reveals List Of Chemicals In French Fries. Will Anyone Care?” Manufacturing.net, 16 Dec. 2015, https://www.manufacturing.net/blog/2015/01/mcdonalds-reveals-list-chemicals-french-fries-will-anyone-care.  Website  
2.  Currie, Janet, et al. “The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol. 2, no. 3, 2010, pp. 32–63. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25760073. Scholarly 
3.  Horovitz, Bruce. “Fast-food drive-thrus are slowing down.” USA Today, 30 Sept. 2013, p. 05B. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A344306715/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=214f1ccf. Accessed 12 Sept. 2019.  Newspaper 
4.  Law, Tara. “Study: Fast Food Calorie Content Has Increased.” Time, Time, https://time.com/5542516/fast-food-study-calories/.  Magazine