The statistics are shocking enough to stop a heart. The National Institutes of Health reports that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, raising their risk of developing maladies such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke and fatty liver disease. The medical costs are even more alarming: an estimated $147 billion was spent in 2008 on obesity-related health care in the U.S. alone. As a nation, we are armed with tons of information on how to lose weight, and we know that diet and exercise generally play an important role. What remains unclear, however, are the specifics: how fat cells are made; why bariatric surgery is beneficial for one person but not another; and what are we thinking when we eat. UT Southwestern is at the forefront of this battle. Selected from multiple disciplines, an elite team of endocrinologists, neuroscientists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists and psychiatrists has one mission in mind -- to develop more directed approaches to preventing obesity and treating the metabolic complications of this disorder. The group, known as the Task Force for Obesity Research (TORS), has grown from a core of two dozen investigators to close to 100 since its creation in 2004. TORS, which is divided into four interconnected research groups focused on certain metabolic aspects, received a $22 million grant from the NIH in 2007 to enhance its groundbreaking efforts to attach obesity from every angle, from studying fat cells to developing medicines. Two leading members of the TORS group -- Joel Elmquist, D.V.M., Ph.D., professor of internal medicine and pharmacology, and Jay Horton, M.D., professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics -- will discuss their obesity research efforts.