The news is filled with alarming statistics, nonstop images of the most extreme examples, and rhetoric that becomes more frantic with each passing day. How many epidemics are we told are now reaching “pandemic proportions” and that we must save the children?

Hearing the word “epidemic,” let alone “pandemic,” leads us to instantly think of danger and crisis. It’s easy to believe the claims, repeat them or, worse, act on them without knowing if the information is even correct. It never occurs to most of us to even consider that an epidemic can be created and not be due to anything ominous at all.

What if you learned that most scientists don’t see an epidemic of obesity or type 2 diabetes, but that the evidence shows very modest increases in actual numbers and that what really is at work is an epidemic of diagnosis, with a hefty dose of marketing spin?