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Alexia Gates

Mrs. Szetela

English 1010

October 7, 2017

The Diet and Disease Dilemma

The documentary called Forks over Knives on Netflix was directed and narrated by Lee

Fulkerson. This is an informational movie that was created in 2011 about the correlation between

diet and disease. In this documentary, there are many rhetorical appeals used. This rhetorician in

this film uses strategies such as a special type of language and organization that fits the

documentary. He also uses pathos, ethos, and logos to further make his claim better. He is able to

explain how he is correct in his findings by using these methods and convincing his audience.

This film can have a wide audience of people. The main audience that they are probably focusing

on is people who have diseases or could potentially have them. They want to inform anyone who

is taking medications for heart diseases and diabetes do not have to continue taking them. This

explains that the purpose of this documentary is to show that medications are not necessary when

you have the right diet of healthy food as your lifestyle. Also, another purpose could be to show

how eating whole foods, plant based food diets can improve overall health and is a much better

way to live life than eating an animal based food diet.

In this documentary, Fulkerson is successful in the way he presents and discusses his

point of view on the matter of diet and disease. He is able to use many different strategies that

help him accomplish this. The film can convince and persuade the audience to believe in what he

is saying because Fulkerson uses all his methods in the right way. Because he is smart about how

he talks about his claim, Fulkerson has an effective argument that is greatly in his favor.
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Fulkerson wanted to know how to make his health better and he set out to find out how.

He went and met a health specialist at the beginning of the film (4:53), to see what he could do to

stop taking medications and just feel better in life in general. He is told to go on a whole food,

plant based diet to improve his health. This makes him curious as to why meat and dairy should

not be a part of a healthy diet. He decides to research this and find a reason as to why these

people believe not eating meat and dairy with significantly improve their health. At the very end

of the film, he follows up by talking again with the health specialist (1:26:32). That is a smart

way to organize it because it makes the most sense and it keeps the audience wanting to know

how he will change on this diet. They will stay and watch the whole documentary so they can see

what happens and how affective these diets really are.

Fulkerson begins by telling us about two researchers who have made remarkable

contributions to this effort on diet and disease correlation. Their names are Dr. Colin Campbell

and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. In the film, Fulkerson shows how Dr. Campbell takes the scientific

route in figuring out this problem and Dr. Caldwell takes the clinical route. Before Fulkerson

starts talking about how they made contributions, he gives his audience a little backstory on each

of the men (4:40). This helps his audience get to know the two-main people he will be talking

about in the film. He then talks about each one individually, throughout the video, and shows the

evidence that each one has found that is associated to diet and disease. Campbell’s research was

on how when people eat meat, dairy, and eggs they have a higher risk of heart disease and

diabetes and at a greater risk of living a short life. While on the other hand, plant based diets

would decrease the diseases and the people would live longer. Dr. Esselstyn took the route of

getting people who take medication and putting them on a plant based diet and watching how
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their disease would stop or even reverse without taking their meds. When they met, they could

share their finding and create even more reason to eat a plant based diet.

Throughout the documentary, Fulkerson talks about the two doctors and their findings

and he organizes this quite interestingly. He talks about each one separately, but explains what

one is doing while the other is doing something different. As time goes on in the film we see how

each of the researchers are kind of figuring out the same answer to the same problem, but in

unique ways. Fulkerson can make his argument successful by talking about two different routes

in finding the correlation between diet and disease and how they both got the same results in the

end. Also, Fulkerson makes this suspense in hinting at the fact that these two researches will

eventually meet. When the film gets closer to the end he reveals when these two men met and

how much more they could conclude by sharing their evidence (55:04). He organized that very

well to show how much evidence can be found that diet does affect disease and that no matter

what way you research it, plant based diet is the best answer to live a healthy lifestyle.

The main claim in the film was that eating a plant based, whole foods diet would help

solve people’s diseases and even reverse their symptoms. Fulkerson used many ways to show the

evidence behind this claim. He showed the scientific side of it through Dr. Campbell. Showing

the statistics of people who eat plant based diets and people who eat animal based diets. Showing

that people with plant based diets had better results than the ones who did not. Fulkerson also

showed the clinical side of his evidence through Dr. Esselstyn. He had some of the people that

Esselstyn was doing his diets on and got information from them. Showing that by following this

food lifestyle, you do not need to worry about medications or diseases much at all. Fulkerson’s

ways of showing his evidence was successful in getting his point across effectively. He did not

just stick to one form of evidence to prove his point, but multiple to show how solid his claim
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was and that he was correct. This was an effective way to convince the audience that his main

claim was a right one.

A strategy that is a big part of persuading the audience is organization. The way

that this documentary is organized is very efficient and effective. In the beginning, the film gets

you hooked into it by showing many different news updates about dieting and diseases. It allows

us, the audience, to want to learn more because suddenly we have a wanting to not get a disease

like the ones in the news updates. IT can be a lot of data at once though. That can make it a bit

overwhelming to the audience and they might not want to stay and watch the rest. Then, the

narrator shows us how he is just an average man like everyone else (1:31:31). He eats fast food,

soda, and junk food like many others do. He chooses to show himself as just a person who wants

to learn more about this issue and becomes someone that is more trustworthy in his findings

because he does not seem bias. He seems like just a regular person who is questioning something

that he is interested in learning about.

In this documentary, pathos, ethos, and logos are used many times throughout the video

to back up the claim being made. Pathos is defined as using pity or sadness when arguing

something to pull at the audience heart strings. By doing this, the audience wants to agree with

what the rhetorician is saying. The goal of using pathos is to create emotional affection for the

subject or claim that is being discussed. This is one of the rhetorical strategies that is used by

many rhetoricians. Fulkerson can and does use pathos to get his audience to believe in his claim

even more.

Fulkerson uses this method of pathos by using the backstories of people who have health

issues to make what he is trying to say more convincing. He has a variety of different people

from all diverse backgrounds who share their story in this film. They each talk about how rough
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their lives were when they were unhealthy. Talking about how much they hated having to take so

many medications and not being about to enjoy life anymore. One man even showed us all his

medications and how often he had to take them, then, with the diet he had the opportunity to

finally stop taking the medications (1:26:36). While these medications were keeping them alive

physically, they were feeling dead emotionally because it was just sad how much they relied on

medication when even then, the medication did not completely fix their problems. As these

people explain each of their sad stories about their health problems, the audience is being pulled

in and convinced because they feel like they can relate or they feel bad for these people. They

might not even realize that pathos is being used in this case and this helps Fulkerson get his

watchers to believe in his purpose and what he is trying to get across in this documentary. When

watching, Fulkerson makes sure that parts of his documentary, like this example, play on

people’s emotions, so they will continue to pay attention and want to know more. Pathos is a

very effective way to attract and get an audience to follow and believe in what a rhetorician is

saying. Fulkerson was successful in the way that he could use this method without seeming to

obvious as he did it.

Another one of the methods of rhetorical strategies that Fulkerson used was the method

of logos. Logos is a term that means to appeal to logic, meaning to convince an audience through

logic or reason. This makes the audience think that they must believe what the rhetorician is

saying because he is using true facts. When a documentary uses numbers, charts, and graphs to

explain something, it is hard for an audience to disagree because it is not just an opinion that they

are disagreeing with. This makes their disbelief harder to support and gives the rhetorician more

support for his argument. Fulkerson uses this method of logos to get his audience to support him

and his claim.

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In Forks over Knives, Fulkerson uses logos to further increase his persuasion to agree

with him and what he is trying to prove in the documentary. He has numbers, data, and all sorts

of diverse ways to use logos that he shows throughout the entire film. There is one section in his

show where he uses a lot of logos to convince his watchers he is right. Fulkerson shows this

book of correlations between diet and disease to use logos to convince his audience. “There are

no less than 94,000 correlations between diet and disease in this book,” (49:05) Fulkerson says in

his documentary. Then, a statistic is used based on this discovery. It is said in the documentary,

“If 19 out of 20 correlations are pointing in the same direction it is highly significant and likely

to be true.” (49:11) Both quotes contribute to Fulkerson’s use of logos in this documentary.

Although he is only taking about correlations and not causations, the audience still wants to

believe because of the way he presented the information. He made it seem like there was no way

these correlations could not be true because there are just so many of them. Overlooking the fact

that not all of them worked out and there could be a flaw in his claim. The audience does not

notice this because he used many numbers and data to make it seem like his facts are all the right

answer and do show that he is correct in his argument. Fulkerson uses this method to his

advantage, making his watchers want to follow him and support him in his argument in the

documentary.

In addition to pathos and logos, Fulkerson used ethos many times throughout his

documentary. Ethos is defined as the ethical appeal. In other words, it is means to convince the

audience of the author's credibility or character. Because rhetoricians are trying to persuade the

audience to follow them, they need to show that they are not someone who is just making up

facts and telling lies to their audience. Using ethos, they can find people who are professionals or

credible people whom they can quote from to show that they are not the only ones who believe in
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what they are saying. The audience can be persuaded and convinced more when they see that the

rhetorician is quoting from people who are experts in what they are claiming. Fulkerson uses this

method many times in the documentary and there are many experts and professionals who he

turns to during the film.

The method of ethos is used by Fulkerson in Forks Over Knives as one of the main

methods of persuasion. There are two major ways that Fulkerson uses ethos to his advantage. He

has two main doctors that he refers to many times in the documentary. Dr. Campbell and Dr.

Esselstyn are both people who are experts in diet and disease and share a lot of what they believe

and what they have discovered in their life about this topic. Both of these men studied this topic

in school and they did a lot of research to find answers. They worked separately and together to

figure out what they thought was the right answer. Fulkerson believed in what they were doing

and their findings. He interviewed them many times during the documentary and followed their

lives and what they discovered for all the audience to see. The doctors were the two who talked

almost as much as Fulkerson, who is the narrator of this film. Both of them had a lot of

intelligence on the matter, so they were an excellent source for Fulkerson to pull from to further

persuade his audience. The fact that they both were studying similar things, but researched them

in different ways, helped show how valid this argument that Fulkerson was making was. These

two doctors, Campbell and Esselstyn, were the two-main people that Fulkerson used to convince

his watchers.

In addition to the doctors, Fulkerson used ethos to his advantage in different ways as

well. He talks about other experts who have studied this topic and have researched and

discovered answers. He talks to many different doctors and specialist from many various places

to get their opinion on this matter during this entire film. This helps him in his persuasion
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because he is using not just himself and two other doctors to convince the people. He is using

tons of unique people who are experts and who all say that what Fulkerson is arguing is correct.

For example, Fulkerson has a man by the name of John McDougall, who studied people and diet

in Hawaii, talk about his findings while he was there (21:31). By doing this, people have the

opportunity relate more to the experts who could be from where they live or followed a lifestyle

that they are following. When the audience sees these people say that they agree with Fulkerson,

it makes them want to agree with him as well. Having many credible sources can really solidify

what someone is trying to say, and Fulkerson did just that. He would even talk about people who

have written books about this matter. He spoke of a man from China, Chen Junshi T., who wrote

a book, that he helped write, about diet and disease and all of the correlations between the two.

(48:38). Fulkerson was able to expand his search beyond the United States to further convince

his audience that what he is saying is true. Fulkerson uses ethos to the best of his ability and does

his best to make sure that it is used efficiently and thoughtfully.

Fulkerson did an excellent job in placing the evidence and interviews by people who have

been affected by this diet and disease problems. He chose people that the audience could relate to

easily and also want to be like them at the same time. One of the people that is showed in the

film was San’dera Nation, a girl living in a suburb in Ohio with her children (36:04). She is just

an average person living an average life, but, Nation has diabetes and hypertension. Now this

woman wants to stop taking her medication and live a healthier lifestyle. She goes on a whole

food, plant based diet because of Dr. Esselstyn. She even writes in a journal to document her

thoughts and feelings about this, because she was not so sure it would work. Like this girl,

Fulkerson features a couple others that are going through similar experiences to show how these

people who have unusual circumstances that gave them these problems. Fulkerson picked the
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right people to have on his documentary because it shows that even average people who do not

have a belief that it will work can have satisfactory results with this diet.

When it comes to how he placed some of the professional interviews, Fulkerson could

have done better. There were times in the documentary, like at the very beginning, that had many

different professional people being interviewed and sharing their findings. The problem was

there being too many different people at once, it became overwhelming. It is a good strategy to

use ethos to help with a claim, but it needs to be more spread out. There were only a couple parts

like that and it made those parts less memorable and more boring. When there was some stories

and other information in between the interviews, it flowed a bit more easily and was a lot more

interesting. When it comes to organizing these interviews, Fulkerson has some room for

improvement.

One smart method of getting his point across that Fulkerson did was integrate diagrams

into his documentary. Not only did he have interviews with professionals, including his two main

doctors, he would quite often show a diagram while they were talking. This made it easier for the

audience to understand what this professional was talking about. For example, when Campbell

said that he started a study on rats, the video changed to a graph (25:05). There was animation

and bright colors that were a part of this graph and other diagrams throughout the film. In

another part of the film, a man by the name of Dr. Lisle talks about a system called the

Motivational Triad. While it is being explained, the film shows a shark swimming through a

body of water and as they talk about this system, the shark is the example of what they are

talking about (33:13. That was a nice, innovating way to explain this concept and still keep his

audience engaged and understanding what was going on. He appealed to many visual learners in

his audience, and used their strength to help them understand what he or one of his professionals
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are trying to get across. This was an effective and ultimately helped him in his claim about diet

and disease.

Not all of Fulkerson’s ways to defend his claim were successful. At one point in the

video Fulkerson says that he went to visit Connie Diekman, director of nutrition at Washington

University (26:58). She is the counterclaim to what he is trying to prove. This was a use of the

method ethos, but instead of showing who agrees with him, he showed someone who

disagrees. The thing that Fulkerson did was he did not give her enough time. He just let her say

that she thinks animal based foods are important, but did not really let her explain why. It almost

made it seem like he was hiding the fact that she has proof that his argument can be wrong.

Fulkerson did really well with all of his other parts of his documentary, but he did not work hard

enough to make his counterclaim a little bit stronger. This made his argument not seem as good

as it could have been because he did not add enough of a counterclaim for his claim to be the

right one. Fulkerson’s approach to coming up with an answer to this problem was successful,

but he did not show enough of the other side of the argument to make his argument more

convincing. He did explore many reasons, studies, experiments, and other ways to get the

evidence he needed to say that a whole food, plant based diet will help diseases decrease and

allow people to live a longer life. What he did not do is show the reasoning for the other side of

his argument. There was not much of a counterclaim in his research to know for sure if he is

right in all his findings.

In the documentary Forks over Knives, Fulkerson does not use an engaging voice to keep

his film interesting. Instead, he uses more of a monotone voice in the film, this can be a problem

if someone does not understand what is interesting about this topic or why it is important. It

makes it easier for his audience to not care and to just tune out to his video. What he should add
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is more excitement into his voice at the right time in the show. When he is physically on screen

in the film, his talking is more natural and more captivating than his narrator voice. When he is

just narrating the film, he uses a very monotone, informational voice to explain what he needs to.

While it does work in a small sense, Fulkerson would make his argument seem more exciting if

he changed the intonation of his voice while narrating. Making his voice sound like his natural

talking voice will make his video just a bit more interesting. When he did show other people, like

his two doctors or the people who have been tested using this diet, they have a more emotion in

their voices. They smile quite often when they talk about their work and that seems to make the

video more compelling to watch when we see their faces light up or their voice sound a little

more passionate. So, while Fulkerson could improve on the way he talks throughout the

documentary, the people that he choice to interview make up the missing excitement in Lee

Fulkerson’s voice.

The language used in this documentary really fit the mood and information that

Fulkerson is trying to portray. The language was not very advanced, so there was no need to

have to wonder what any of them are talking about. At the same time, the words used were not

too simple as to make it seem that Fulkerson really did not know very many details about his

claim and evidence. The documentary uses a kind of middle ground between simple and

complex language to get their message across. By doing this, they can appeal to a younger

audience and an older audience. Although, this video is not for elementary school kids, just

because some of the language is still a bit too complex for small children. Instead, it is

understood best by teenagers and adults. Even though it is not too complex of language, it still

talks about statistics and other facts that might be too hard to understand for children. The

audience that Fulkerson is going for is not children, so he made sure he made his documentary
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more suited for adults. They also did a respectable job with repeating things that have already

been said. It helped the audience to remember exactly what, whoever was talking in the film, was

explaining. Overall, the language used in this documentary was thought out very well and made

the film easy to understand without seeming too simple and like a children’s informational show.

With the many strategies used, Fulkerson became triumphant in proving he is correct in

his argument. He had some methods that did not work out in his favor in the end, but the

majority of the strategies the audience is persuaded to know that the correlation between diet and

disease is a strong one. Forks Over Knives shared an important topic that can be something most

people do not understand. Fulkerson took it upon himself to show his viewers that diet and

disease is a real problem, but can be solved and cured. With plant-based, whole foods diet,

diseases can be greatly reduced throughout the world. Fulkerson believed in this and used

strategies and methods to successfully get this message out to the world.

The way Fulkerson uses elements of organization and rhetorical appeals it is clear that

diet and disease are closely connected and plant-based diets will decrease food related diseases.

People do not give much thought to their diet or the causes of the diseases that they have.

Fulkerson shows how much a small thing like food can greatly impact everyone’s lives for the

worse or for the better. He is successful in getting his claim and message across to his audience.

Food is essential to everybody, but it is up to everyone to choose if they are going to let food

help them or hurt them in their life.

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Work Cited

Forks Over Knives documentary by Lee Fulkerson.