James Hamblin wrote the article Body Weight, Clash of Ideologies for The Atlantic on January 16, 2015. Hamblin (2015) stated media has an important role in educating the public on what obesity is, therefore influencing policy. Hamblin (2015) wrote about a meeting of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) where he spoke about media's part in obesity. According to Hamblin (2015) reduction of obesity rates has been slow because the public does not understand obesity is a biopsychosocial disease.
National obesity rates appear to be on the decline among certain age groups of people (Hamblin, 2015). However, obesity is still a major problem for a third of Americans and costs billions of dollars (Hamblin, 2015). Hamblin (2015) wrote progress to reduce obesity rates has been slow because people misunderstand obesity. According to Hamblin (2015), obesity is a biopsychosocial disease.
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Hamblin (2015) wrote about the importance of physical activity, better school lunches, and nutrition education for school children.
Hamblin (2015) stated blaming obesity on a person's bad judgement is deceitful and often harmful. Most people believe that changing one's behavior is the solution for obesity (Hamblin, 2015). For example, "only 18 percent of Americans identify external factors (like the ubiquity if junk food, lack of opportunities and places for kids to play, et cetera) as the primary causes of childhood obesity" (Hamblin, 2015). Most people think the symptoms of obesity are the causes (Hamblin,