Summary Of Cruelty Civility And Other Weighty Matter

In “Cruelty, Civility, and Other Weighty Matters” by Ann Marie Paulin, she was trying to get across a very important message: skinny doesn’t mean happy. The main idea was about how our culture in America encourages obesity because of the food choices they offer, how expensive weight loss pills and exercise bikes is, and etc., yet the culture also is prejudice against these same fat people that they encourage. It’s a constant back and forth in America between what is convenient with the little time we have in between everything we have to do each day and working out to be skinny enough for everyone to not judge you. Ms. Paulin wrote this article for literally everyone, this article was for skinny people to show them like hey, you’re not all

of that either and stop judging people. On the other hand, this was an article for obese people to feel better about themselves because they’re not alone and they shouldn’t be treated less equal compared to their skinny counterparts. This could also be to business people, whether that be in food or accounting to stop fat-shaming big people. They should be treated as equals, not as sloppy and lazy people all because they’re a bigger pant size. The tone that Ann uses is strong, empathic yet informal. She uses the word, “you” a lot to make it more personal instead of a research paper. Her style overall was informal, however, very informative. She used a lot of sources to explain her thoughts and to back them up. For example, when she questioned how skinny people diet and how they do it, she used an essay by Rebecca Puhl and Chelsea Heuer that basically said that people who do diet, usually always gain the weight back and even more than they lost. So diets don’t work. That strategy makes her knowledgeable and her point valid. It would’ve been one thing for her main idea to be about how all because you’re skinny, that doesn’t make you better but with no statistics on diets, the workplace inequality, or what some people think about obesity and if they’ll ever date a person who’s obese. This also makes her appeal to reason. Ms. Pailin presented facts to her opinion and that lead the audience to a specific conclusion, which was to not judge someone based on how they look. A simple lesson that hard for most to grasp.