We hypothesized that the presence of obesity in community based children will be associated with increased FABP4 levels which may account for individual discrepancies in the presence or absence of insulin resistance or high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) plasma levels, and that single nucleotide polymorphisms in the FABP4 gene may underlie the variance in such relationships. The gene discussed is FABP4; the disease is obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.