As of 2022, 43% of adults worldwide are overweight, according to the World Health Organization. That figure has nearly doubled since 1990, when 25% of adults carried excess weight. In the United States, the numbers are considerably higher, with about 70% of adults falling into the overweight or obese category.
Global Overweight Rates
The WHO defines “overweight” as a BMI of 25 or higher and “obesity” as a BMI of 30 or higher. By those measures, 43% of adults aged 18 and over were overweight in 2022. Adult obesity specifically has more than doubled since 1990. If current trends hold, the World Obesity Federation projects that 51% of the global population, over 4 billion people, will be living with overweight or obesity by 2035. At that point, roughly one in four people worldwide will have obesity.
These numbers aren’t evenly distributed. Some Pacific Island nations have obesity rates above 60%, with American Samoa (70%), Nauru (70%), and Tokelau (67%) topping the global rankings. On the other end, countries like Ethiopia (1.1%), Timor-Leste (1.6%), and Rwanda (1.8%) have the lowest obesity rates, all low-income nations where undernutrition remains a more pressing concern.
Overweight Rates in the United States
The U.S. has some of the highest overweight and obesity rates among large developed nations. CDC data from 2021 to 2023 puts adult obesity alone at 40.3%, with severe obesity (BMI of 40 or higher) at 9.4%. When you add in people who are overweight but not yet obese, roughly 7 in 10 American adults exceed a healthy weight range.
Women have a slightly higher obesity rate than men: 41.3% compared to 39.2%. The age group with the highest prevalence is adults 40 to 59, where obesity reaches 44.8%. Younger adults (20 to 39) come in at 40%, and adults 60 and older at 42.8%. Middle age is the peak, but the differences across age groups are relatively small, meaning obesity is common at every stage of adulthood.
Differences by Race and Ethnicity
Obesity rates vary significantly across racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. Non-Hispanic Black adults have the highest prevalence at 49.6%, followed by Hispanic adults at 44.8% and non-Hispanic white adults at 42.2%. Non-Hispanic Asian adults have the lowest rate at 17.4%.
The gap is especially pronounced among women. Black women have an obesity rate of 56.9%, compared to 43.7% for Hispanic women, 39.8% for white women, and 17.2% for Asian women. Among men, the pattern shifts slightly: Hispanic men (45.7%) and white men (44.7%) have higher rates than Black men (41.1%), though all three groups remain far above Asian men (17.5%). These disparities reflect differences in access to affordable healthy food, neighborhood walkability, healthcare access, and the accumulated effects of socioeconomic inequality.
Children and Adolescents
The rise in childhood overweight has been just as dramatic. Globally, 20% of children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 were overweight in 2022, up from just 8% in 1990. Childhood obesity specifically has quadrupled in that same period, climbing from 2% (31 million children) to 8% (over 160 million children). For children, BMI is assessed differently than for adults. Rather than fixed cutoff numbers, a child is considered obese if their BMI falls at or above the 95th percentile for their age and sex.
This matters because children who develop obesity early are far more likely to remain obese as adults. The metabolic changes that come with excess weight, including insulin resistance and chronic inflammation, can begin in childhood and compound over decades.
How These Numbers Have Changed Over Time
The speed of this shift is what stands out. In 1990, one in four adults globally was overweight. By 2022, it was nearly one in two. Obesity among adults more than doubled in that same 32-year window. Among children and teens, overweight prevalence grew 2.5 times over, and obesity quadrupled.
The trend has been consistent across nearly every region and income level. While rates remain highest in wealthy nations and Pacific Island countries, the fastest growth is now happening in low- and middle-income countries, where diets are shifting rapidly toward processed and calorie-dense foods. The World Obesity Federation estimates that the economic impact of overweight and obesity will surpass $4 trillion annually by 2035 if the trajectory continues, driven by healthcare costs and lost productivity.
What BMI Measures and What It Misses
All of these statistics rely on BMI, a simple ratio of weight to height. It is useful for tracking population-level trends, but it has real limitations for individuals. BMI doesn’t distinguish between muscle and fat, doesn’t account for where fat is stored on the body, and can miscategorize people who are muscular or very tall. Someone with a BMI of 26 could be metabolically healthy with low disease risk, while someone with a BMI of 24 could carry dangerous amounts of visceral fat around their organs.
Waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio are better individual predictors of metabolic disease than BMI alone. Still, BMI remains the standard for large-scale surveys because it requires only a scale and a measuring tape, making it practical for tracking millions of people across countries and decades. The percentages in this article reflect that measurement, with all its strengths and blind spots.