Commentary: obesity claims and controversies.

There is very strong evidence to indicate that this is true, i.e. that the incidence of obesity is increasing in most of the countries in which we have information. 2–5 The authors question the use of the word epidemic, a point we will not belabour except to say that definitions of epidemic are not confined to infectious diseases but rather rest on a health phenomenon being ‘clearly in excess of normal expectancy’. 6,7