The prospect of significant increase in global health-related costs associated with high cardiometabolic complications of obesity in Asians has encouraged more attention to the problem of growing obesity prevalence in these populations. While these studies have shown that cardiometabolic complications occur more frequently and at lower body mass index (BMI) in Asians than in European populations, the mechanisms involved are yet to be discovered. Ethnic/racial differences in body composition and fat distribution have been extensively studied.