ABSTRACT
Preventing further rise of body weight is a key public health challenge, and reducing the percentage of people who are obese an even greater one. More than 40 years ago the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health identied obesity as an important public health problem and organized one of their rst two conferences around this topic (Bray 1976). In spite of this auspicious beginning, the problem has only gotten worse. We need to prevent obesity because doing so will prolong life and reduce the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, and some forms of cancer. Obesity is a disease that can bankrupt the health care system, particularly in developing countries (Bray 1998).
