This how-to was much better than the one we read last week from Men's Health. I found the expert comments to be much more convincing, the steps themselves to be much more informative, the writing to be better, the premise to be more intelligent, the points to be more convincing, and on and on. This was pretty much exactly how a how-to should read, even if it wasn't particularly eye-opening, and certainly not as eye-opening as I think its writer thought it was.
The intro is much longer than the intro to the previous how-to – it's a full page – but that's easily justified by the fact that the steps (and they are true steps here, not simply separate but related sections) are longer as well. Structurally, it does everything one can ask for from a how-to. The steps come in a logical order, and they're followed up by a neat little addendum that functions well.
The steps here are packed to the brim with information: experts' quotes, statistics, examples from restaurant menus of the points being illustrated. As such, the writer's voice isn't totally allowed to breathe. For a highly informative story like this, though, I don't think that's such a big deal. The article does its job. It isn't supposed to be a pleasurable, aesthetic read; it's supposed to be a wake-up call. Like I said earlier, that child health in America isn't at its best right now isn't necessarily revelatory, but it is important and this article provides suggestions to fix it in however small a way it can. For what kind of article it is, I'm not sure it could have been done much better.
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