The Endocrine Society Centennial: Genes and Hormones in Obesity... or How Obesity Met Endocrinology.

Abstract

There is no doubt that obesity has become a major public health problem worldwide. The rates of obesity, a condition of excess of body fat and body mass index more than or equal to 30 kg/m2 , have experienced exponential growth during the last decades (1, 2). This is epitomized by statistics showing that obesity affects around one third of the adult American population, and its prevalence has increased between 10% and 40% in most European countries, with the United Kingdom having more than 22%–23% of adult men and woman being obese. Even more worrying, the number of overweight children in the Unites States and Europe has increased steadily from 1990 to 2010, with a prediction that more than 60% of infants who are overweight will remain so in early adulthood (1,3).