Prevalence of overweight and obesity among adult subjects of an urban African population sample.

In a strict sense obesity can be defined as an excess of body fat relative to the amount of non-adipose tissue in the individual. In clinical practice it is not infrequently equated with overweight. Moderate depositions of fat can occur in the individual who is not overweight and muscular hypertrophy may cause an appreciable increase in weight with only a minimum accumulation of adipose tissue in the body (Welham and Behnke, 1942).