Abstract: @@ In the world between 1 and 2 billion people have obesity.1 In the United States, which has the highest obesity rate in the world, one in three people have obesity.2 Obesity rates are increasing in every country in which it has taken hold.1 Obesity rates also affect all ages from the growing elderly-obese population3 to the dramatic increase in pediatric obesity,4,5 for example in the United States it is predicted that by the end of the decade one in two US children will have obesity.Obesity similarly affects all races and both sexes.6 As a consequence of the co-morbidities of obesity and of the associated costs such as days off work, obesity costs the US economy about 100-200 billion dollars per year.7