The Concept of Overfitting in Machine learning

If you are taking any Machine learning courses or practising to solve some ML problems.You would have come across this term called “Overfitting”.

Let’s try to understand it with a simple example:

We are trying to come up with a generic size of a T-shirt that suits an average person.(not extreme tall/short and weights).

And for that we got certain sample measurements from the existing population.

Now we have come up with certain values for hands, neck, back etc and designed a shirt.

Now based on the feedback received from each individual , we keep changing the measurements such that it fits just fine for people in the sample. 

The adjustments we are trying to make doesn’t generalise much as we are trying to make sure that the shirt fits  perfectly for the people who’s measurements are known.