Extensive practical experience supported by careful laboratory studies has demonstrated that most overweight patients are not obese as a result of an organic disease. The specialists in this field have clarified the diagnostic problems to such an extent that if the basic medical history, physical examination, and laboratory tests do not give positive evidence of an organic disease, it is most unlikely that there is a hidden physiological disorder present. This knowledge enables the general practitioner to approach the management of the grossly overweight patient with full confidence that his key problem is control of the intake of food. Proper allowances must be made for age, height, body build, and lifelong habits of eating. Slavish adherence to height-weight tables that purport to give ideal norms is unrealistic, since the inadequacy of these tables has been shown. Every patient deserves an individual evaluation in terms of his own body constitution and