ABSTRACT
Worldwide increases in child obesity have been attributed to changes in diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and genetic predisposition, as reviewed in other chapters, but these risk factors do not fully account for the pace and pattern of recent secular trends [1,2]. The health consequences of obesity across the life course [3-6] coupled with challenges and costs of management [7,8] underscore the importance of disentangling the origins of pediatric obesity. The environment to which humans are exposed has changed, due to the exponential growth in the production and use of synthetic chemicals since the late nineteenth century [9]. In 2002, researchers offered ecologic evidence relating elevated production of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) to US obesity trends and highlighted paradoxical weight gains at low levels of exposure to these ubiquitous compounds [2]. The mechanisms underlying the association of EDCs, collectively termed obesogens [10], with the developmental programing of obesity are described in Chapter 20.
