ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Obesity is considered as one of the major health issue in the world. The prevalence of obesity worldwide has progressively increased over the past decades. In the past, it has only been considered as a problem in high-income countries. Recently, it is dramatically on the rise even in lowand middle-income countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) more than one billion adults are overweight and 300 million of them are obese. The WHO assumes that by the year of 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. Since 1980, obesity rates have risen more than three-fold in some areas of North America, the U.K., Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacifi c Islands, Australia, and China. In 2002, obesity prevalence in the U.S.A. was 34.9%, which has grown to 39% in 2005 and the WHO estimates that by 2015, it will be 53%. Obesity prevalence is rapidly increasing among children as well as adolescents worldwide. At least 20 million children under the age of fi ve were overweight worldwide in 2005 (https://www.who.int). Obesity is a direct result of an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure. The tendency toward obesity is most of the time multifactorial. The main causes are genetic and environmental factors such as decreased physical activity and consumption of foods that are high in fats and sugars but low in vitamins and minerals.
