Taking on the Obesity Epidemic : Researchers Wage a Big Fat Fight in Efforts to Combat This Global Health Issue

If obesity were tied only to too much food or too little physical activity, the cure would be a simple matter of counting calories or keeping track of steps with a pedometer. Unfortunately, obesity is much more complex. Many other factors come into play, including so-called hunger genes that make a person more susceptible to obesity, infection with certain pathogens linked to weight gain, hormones that dampen or stimulate appetite, sleep disruption that can trigger overeating, and social networks that can promote obesity.With studies continually uncovering more and more genetic, hormonal, behavioral, cultural, physiological, societal, bacteriological, and pathogenic pathways that potentially-and differentially-have an impact on an individual's propensity for weight gain, obesity might seem an inescapable global health issue. Researchers, however, have taken up the gauntlet and redoubled their efforts to improve the understanding of obesity and, they hope, make headway toward treating and preventing it.