Obesity, a multifactorial, metabolic disorder, involves complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors. With an alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity worldwide, it has become a major health care burden not just in terms of the increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular morbidity, cholelithiasis, arthiritis and certain malignancies, but also in the economic costs to healthcare providers. The great similarity and homology between the genomes of rodents and humans make these animal models an important tool in unraveling the mechanisms involved in the etiology, prevention and treatment of obesity. This review summarizes the various approaches for the induction of obesity in the rodent models via genetic manipulation, hypercaloric diets and neuroendocrine perturbations.