ABSTRACT
Over the last 25 years, the obesity epidemic has reached
detrimental proportions in the United States, and more
recently it has emerged as an international public health
problem. Increases in prevalence of obesity and overweight
in both adults and children have been observed in many
countries worldwide (1-5). The surge in rates of obesity has
caused global and domestic agencies to respond with mul-
tilevel efforts, ranging from research to search for genetic
and environmental factors that predispose individuals to
obesity, to public policy changes. Evidence has shown that
environmental factors such as diet and inactivity interact
with at least several genes resulting in excessive fat storage
(6-9). The concept that much of the world now lives in an
“obesifying” environment and that the remainder of the
world may aspire to this lifestyle is widely accepted and the
rising rates of obesity in developing countries seem to
support this belief (2,5). Concomitantly, nearly all coun-
tries-developed and developing-are experiencing increas-
ing prevalence of obesity in children of all ages (10).
