Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in United States. Currently, more than 65% of Americans are overweight or obese (1). Obesity is correlated with several medical conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and certain types of cancer. Obesity and its related diseases are responsible for ≈400 000 deaths per year in the United States, paralleling the number of preventable deaths caused by smoking (2). Overweight in pediatric age groups has nearly tripled in the past 30 y (3). Today, an estimated 16.1% of adolescents (12–19 y of age) in the United States are overweight (body mass index ≥95th percentile for age) (4). Studies indicate that 50–77% of these adolescents will become obese adults; 80% of those with one obese parent will do so (5-8). Data show significantly lower quality of life scores for obese children compared with children of normal weight (9). They also show increased risk of obesity-related comorbidities, including degenerative joint disease (10, 11) and type 2 diabetes (5, 12-14).