ABSTRACT
Obesity is one of the most complex and poorly understood clinical syndromes affecting children and adults throughout the world. In the last decade the estimated number of adults with excess weight has increased dramatically, from 200 million to 300 million affected individuals (1). The current prevalence of this disorder ranges from 5% to 10% of the population in some African and Asian countries to over 75% in urban Samoa (2). Since 1980 obesity rates have risen threefold or more in some areas of North America, United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Middle East, the Pacific Islands, andAustralia. InMexico the prevalence of obesity also exhibited a dramatic increase between 2000 and 2003, obesity now being present in 60% of women and 50% of men (3). Mendez et al. recently observed that, in most developing countries, prevalence rates of overweight in young women exceed prevalence rates of underweight in both urban and rural areas particularly in countries at higher levels of socioeconomic development where the rates of obesity exceed 60% (4).
