This collection of essays, based on a national symposium on obesity, is aimed at the generalist with an interest in managing obesity and its outcomes, whether general practitioner, community nurse, dietician or hospital clinician. Its purpose is to highlight the causes and consequences of obesity and to bring modern understanding to the treatment of a problem that is still heavily stigmatized. The authors offer a wide-ranging perspective of obesity as a global problem and explore its devastating metabolic, social and political impact. What is increasingly clear is that the seeds of many of these adult diseases are sown in childhood. The prevention of adult obesity has thus become a major challenge for the pediatrician.