Obesity is a global public health problem leading to increased mortality and comorbidities such as type 2 diabetes (T2DM), metabolic syndrome, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep disorders, and osteoarthritis. In the United States, the age-adjusted prevalence of obesity (defined as BMI ≥30 kg/m2) has increased from 15 to 34% in adults aged >20 years from 1980 to 2008, although the trend of increase has slowed in the past decade (1,2). Marked racial and gender differences in the prevalence of obesity have been observed. Approximately 32% of European American adults were obese and 5% were morbidly obese (BMI ≥40 kg/m2) in the 2007–2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Alarmingly, 44% of African Americans were obese and 11% were morbidly obese, with black women having a substantially higher prevalence of obesity (50%) than black men (37%) (2).
