Obesity is a chronic disease associated with important additional diseases, such as DM 2, that both reduce life quality and increase morbimortality from any cause. In the Western world, obesity is directly responsible for most deaths due to associated chronic disease. Therefore, substantial effort should be directed towards adequate primary prevention campaigns and policies, as well as towards an intensive and long-term multidisciplinary treatment of obesity, in an attempt to combat this threat to the health of a large part of our population.