Sunday, July 29, 2018

Devil's Advocate

Healthy living experts from around the country weigh in on the new upstart in the health world, Lynn Deming. Her outrageous claims that being healthy doesn’t have to be a chore and that we shouldn’t have to spend hours each week exercising at a gym and that using common sense for healthy eating have sparked a backlash against her “childhood fun lifestyle” . Here’s what some of the experts have to say about her.

Wanda Workout: Who does she think she is? We all know that in today’s world the only way to truly get healthy is to create a workout plan and schedule time each day to go to the gym. Working out for at least 90 minutes each day, doing specific workouts that include cardio and weights is a must. She doesn’t even call it exercise or working out--she calls is play and activity. She thinks it should be fun and silly. She looks like a fool talking about playing kickball with her friends, dancing around her house and through stores, she definitely does not give this the serious consideration that being healthy needs.

Neil Nutrition: She is irresponsible, she obviously doesn’t know about the importance of making proper dietary choices. Without getting blood tests how can she determine the optimal nutrition plan that takes all the life variances into account so people can make the necessary changes needed to be healthy. She even states that having ice cream, or other junk food as a treat once in awhile is ok. Does she know what that does to the body? It totally messes with the delicate balance of how nutrients react in the body, people need to stick to a regimented diet.

Eddie Exerciser: She rides her bicycle on the streets (and to get ice cream, nonetheless), and she recommends dancing while you are doing chores around your house as “activity”. She has no set plan of action. It’s so unhealthy and uncontrolled. She rides, walks, works out outside where there are cars and other distractions. It is such a polluted environment. And she doesn’t check her heart rate and other vitals, how does she know if she is reaching the burn or exercising hard enough? And jumping rope while singing songs--what is she, 5? People need to have regimented classes so they can optimize their output potential. This is a workout not recess!

Dolly Dieter: What does she think she’s doing? She should be counting calories, and tracking the amount of fat/protein/carb ratios. I can’t even believe that she eats carbs, sugar, dairy or gluten and thinks that for the average person that these are ok in moderation. Don’t even get me started on the alcohol or chocolate. This moderation crap she preaches is for the birds! Obviously, she is just not disciplined enough to be blogging about healthy food and exercise, she doesn’t offer or endorse any sort of “program” that will provide the structure that people need to make wise choices.

So there you have it, 4 experts weigh in on this new upstart in the health industry, she has no degree, or certification to be talking about living healthy. She is a quack and will lead many people into obesity and unhealthy habits.

5 comments:

  1. Wow, this was written exactly as a sensational piece would be! I wouldn't be surprised to see this appear on a tabloid site or in my Facebook feed. Great use of inflammatory words, especially the "outrageous" right in the beginning, and the certain doom closing sentence. I think the quote sections would be stronger if they were broken down a little. The reading on interviews (chapter 12?) had helpful tips for breaking up the spoken flow of your interview subjects.

    Great job!

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  2. Wow! What an interesting format you used for this piece. Instead of a traditional style piece, you established a beautiful level of creativity and ran with it. Excellent!

    I personally would think about possibly rephrasing: "Her outrageous claims that being healthy doesn’t have to be a chore and that we shouldn’t have to spend hours each week exercising at a gym and that using common sense for healthy eating have sparked a backlash against her “childhood fun lifestyle”"

    The sentence feels a bit long and drawn out. Perhaps by splicing that long thought you can establish short/ witty phrases that can stand all on thir ow

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  3. I must be a little late to the party, but I agree with both RM Grey and Ava Elise that the formatting and idea of this piece is great! It really stands out from the normal blog post and grabs the attention of the reader. Good job!

    I also agree with Ava Elise when she says that there are some long, run on sentences. The second sentence of the post could be broken down a little bit - you could write something like, “Deming’s outrageous claim that being healthy doesn’t have to be a chore since there is no need to spend hours each week exercising at a gym, only a need for common sense eating,” has sparked a lot of backlash with fitness gurus and experts.

    I enjoyed the pun-intended expert names, but I would format the quotes a little differently to make them flow with the article. I know this is just a blog post but maybe think about putting images in front of the interview names so people can make references.

    Overall great job with this assignment! Just look at your sentences in the future and make sure they aren’t too long. There is no problem with breaking them up and being more precise!

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  4. Hey Lynn,

    Amazingly creative work on this one! I agree with everyones previous comments but I felt you truly channeled your inner hater for this one. I constantly have people tell me how to cook food or make videos and I often go on long rants about what they "think they know". I definitely got that vibe from this piece but I love it! I love that you stay genuine to your lifestyle decisions and what you believe to be right and this format hammered home how much adversity we all face with other peoples' opinions. Great job!

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  5. This is great—another reason why I gave you the follow last week. You not only define your devil well for your niche and hashtag, you divide him up and give him names. You name your trolls and determine their collective purpose too—to keep you from becoming a “quack.”

    Your trolls are not jerks, but your better angels keeping you in line. Don’t make them too cartoonish. Let them talk, listen to them, and respond better. The stronger you develop these counter-arguments, in research and perspective, the stronger you make your counter-argument. You want to solve for your own dissatisfaction. That’s terrific.

    The devils advocate assignment reinforces my emphasis on “drafting” throughout the semester. Too often we think of another draft as something proofed for spelling errors. I use first drafts to get my initial thoughts on the page and expect a second draft to change and evolve and possibly inspire a third.

    Most courses teach us to get a writing assignment correct to communicate we understood a lesson. That’s an essential part of learning, but it ignores another essential benefit of writing, and that’s its ability to discover. If my assignments fill you with questions, that’s my intention. You must write further to answer them—because they are yours.

    Even when you step away from writing, your mind continues to work on the problems you set down with your words. It’s a process a lot of people don’t take time to practice or benefit from.

    Did any of your devils make you reconsider anything? Look at the variety of other answers in the class. Some made an argument that changed their mind. Others were swept away by their passions. These are steps in the argument process advancing within all of our beats.

    Our best sentences and theses (ideas) emerge from the writing process if we write this way. Sometimes our own sentences surprise us. There’s an old writing lesson that says no tears (or laughter or surprise, etc.) in the writer; no tears (etc.) in the reader.

    So draft, and then go back, and pull your best sentences from your rough process and start over with them. Don’t rush past what makes the writing process a process.

    Good work.

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I am looking at submitting the article to Healthy Living Magazine. https://www.dropbox.com/s/kw5ljiy04bw954o/Writer%20Guidelines.docx &quo...