Avoiding the Use of Diet Pills Essay

Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience to avoid use of diet pills.

Thesis: We all should avoid diet pills like a plague as there are too many side effects risking health of innocent people and causing them to suffer just because they did not know. Also, we should spread this information to everyone we know. You could be saving a life.

Attention Step

1. [Attention Getter] Every modern person’s big question is “what is it I could eat to get thinner?”
   1. Medical workers widely promote healthy lifestyle, which includes having healthy weight. Diet pills seem to be preferred by the majority of weight watchers because they grant quick results easily. Yet, not many people know about the danger these pills present.
   2. Side effects of diet pills are unknown and rarely mentioned because they would harm the reputation of the pills that need to be promoted. The manufacturers of diet pills prefer to emphasize the positive effect they bring.
2. Consumers come to pharmacies and get those magic pills that help to lose weight in the shortest time possible. Tossing these pills into their mouths weight watchers expect to live better and healthier lives. In reality, they give their bodies a chance to develop fatal conditions, such heart kidney and liver diseases.
3. [Credibility] I am sure some of us know of a similar case and will admit it is not worth it at all.
4. [Topic Justification] We have all been at that point when we felt we needed to cut down a little. The thought of a pill that makes it all go away appealed to us and some of us actually fell for it. Had we been better informed we would have escaped. Well, here is the chance.
5. [Preview] Today I would like to explain that even though taking diet pills seems like the easiest way out, in reality it turns out to be the most costly. Watching what and how you eat and exercising regularly is the simplest yet most ignored advice given to weightwatchers. In the end, they suffer for taking the easier way out. I am here to persuade you to always avoid that easier path.

Transition: you may think, “I have never been in such a situation and may never be”, but you are wrong. Weight gain may occur due to a number of reasons; childbirth, old age, diabetes. You may one day find yourself struggling with arthritis and imagine how much easier it would be on your knee-joints if you weighed a few pounds less.

Need Step

1. Modern society members are under the constant pressure of being skinny and petite promoted by the mass media.
   1. Just because the trend is to be as skinny as possible does not mean we have to follow it. Self-image and self-love is supposed to come from within us. When we dislike our appearances, we become ready to do anything to change it.
   2. Unfortunately, most of the people who are addicted to drugs stimulating weight loss did not even need them in the first place. They used to be healthy individuals who over criticized themselves.
   3. This does not mean it is necessary for overweight people to take drugs. There are much better stipulated means of losing that weight rather than risking their lives.
2. Taking diet pills is highly dangerous because the way they work harms human body.
   1. Diet pill usage leads to many health conditions such as high blood pressure, liver disease, congestive heart failure, urinary tract difficulties, stomach pains, glaucoma, insomnia, respiratory failure and even stroke.
   2. Examples of diet pills include; orlistat, benzphetamine (didrex), diethylproprion, pondimin, mazindol, phentermieetc (Drugs& Alcohol, par. 5).
   3. Taking diet pills worsens chronic conditions a person may have. The “best” diet pills that grant the fastest results are based on psychotropic substances that destroy nervous system.
3. You can choose to ignore all this or actually take it up. Statistically, girls start worrying about their weight at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Basically, any female older than that is at risk of getting her health harmed by weight loss drugs.
   1. A study performed among high-school aged females found that the use of diet pills especially has gone up almost double from 7.5 percent to 14 percent. Around 20 percent of 19-20 year olds surveyed were found to have used diet pills.
   2. Over 50 percent of people with eating disorders tend to abuse diet pills (Diet Pills, par. 7).

Transition: now you have a clear picture of how diet pills affect our health and that of people we love. You also know that it is not a minor problem that can be ignored. It is affecting more and more people daily at a much higher rate.

Solution Step

1. [Evaluation of suggested solution] Healthy lifestyle may seem to be a hard work. Yet, this is the true way that guarantees permanent weight loss without negative effects on health.
2. [Statement of Solution] Exercise and healthy eating is the only healthy way out. Being strong-willed and principled is probably all you need to achieve success.
   1. Eat smaller proportions of food many times a day. Ensure well balanced meals high in fiber to improve digestion.
   2. A jog or an intense long walk is excellent for heart. Do warm up exercises before you begin training to avoid muscle damage. With time you will get more comfortable exercising and will actually learn to like it.
3. [Explanation of solution] The alternative method may not be as fast in effect in weight loss as diet pills but it is more effective in the long run and has no fatal side effects.
   1. Statistically, women between the ages of 18 and 30 who walk at least 4 hours in a day are 44 percent more likely to lose weight than women of the same age who do not, even if they used diet pills (Diet Pillls, par. 3).
4. [Effectiveness of the solution] Weight loss through the regular exercising is more stable
   1. Human body reacts to rapid weight loss by storing fat.
   2. As soon a starved body gets a chance, it will re-gain all the lost weight by increasing the person’s appetite, so they are likely to become heavier than before the use of pills.
5. [Refutation] It is believed that some diet pills are harmless because they work though diuretic of depletive effects.
   1. Diuretics cause loss of liquids, which harms kidneys, heart and causes muscle spasms and headaches.
   2. Depletive drugs may cause stomach disorders, hemorrhoids and tie people up making them stay home all the time causing a lot of discomfort.

Transition: now that we have figured out that it is not that hard to exercise or watch what you eat, let us consider the benefits of exercising besides weight loss.

Visualization Step

[Positive Visualization] Imagine a world without diet pills, eating disorders, cigarettes and drugs – this is what healthy lifestyle for everyone means.

Conclusion Step

1. Healthy lifestyle benefits include; keeping fit, reducing your chances of heart failure, becoming a generally happier person, better skin, better sexual drive, etc.
2. [Closing Statement] Today I have given you the tools you need to reconsider your choices and make a pro-health choice.

Audience Analysis

My audience is made up of young people of around 20-30 years like in a higher education institution

Ethos Analysis

I implied to my audience to look at the facts objectively and tried to make them connect with the situation by telling it could be them or their loved ones next. This was not to scare them into agreeing with me but to get them to act upon the information I gave.

Stylistic Devices

Simile: Avoid diet pills like a plague.

Enthymemes

Side effects of diet pills are unknown and rarely mentioned because they would harm the reputation of the pills that need to be promoted.

Diet pills seem to be preferred by the majority of weight watchers because they grant quick results easily.

Motive Appeals

Fear: I scared the audience by telling them this could happen to anyone including them or their loved ones.

Self-pride: I appealed to the audience by making them imagine how great they will feel when they actually achieve their goal of losing weight.

Works Cited

Diet Pills. Addiction Hope. 2014. Web.

Diet Pills. Livestrong. 2014. Web.

Drugs & Alcohol. Pamf. n.d. Web.