Description/Overview: Obesity threatens to undermine many of the health improvements decades of science and research have fostered. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recently reported that obesity rates for adults will exceed 60% in 13 states if the current trends continue. Other estimates predict that by 2030, 86.3% of all U.S. adults will be overweight or obese, and 51.5% will be obese. Childhood and adolescent obesity rates have more than doubled in the last 30 years, reaching a startling 20% and 17%, respectively. It is now projected that obese children are more than twice as likely to die before age 55. In addition, significant health disparities exist among ethnic minority populations, data indicate that 39.1% of 2-19 year-old Blacks; 39.1% of 2-19 year-old Hispanics have a BMI ¡Ý85 percentile compared to 27.9% of 2-19 year-old Whites. Poor, underserved, and ethnic minority populations are most at risk for developing obesity and its related health sequelae, which include cancer, CVD, and diabetes. This pervasive epidemic affects all ages of the population in the United States and disproportionately affects ethnic minorities and economically disadvantaged communities. In order to address the obesity epidemic, it is essential to work with communities to approach the epidemic in a variety of ways. The Lifecourse Perspective guides our collective work recognizing that a variety of risk and protective factors including biological, genetic, psychological, cultural, and historical events and experiences influence the overall health of individuals and populations. Different health trajectories are the product of these cumulative risk and protective factors and other influences that are programmed into biobehavioral regulatory systems during critical and sensitive periods. This symposium will highlight work in the area of obesity across the lifespan.