Is being fat 'in your genes'?

The UK's leading biomedical research funders are joining forces to confront what many now regard as the epidemic of obesity.

A quarter of the UK population is now clinically obese, and it is estimated that figure will rise to more than 50 per cent by the middle of the century.

The Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council's plans to pump £24m into a new "Metabolic Diseases Unit" in Cambridge that will pull together existing expertise on the City's biomedical science campus, and fund further research.

The Today programme's science correspondent Tom Feilden reports.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday 29 May 2013.