OBESITY ATLAS 2026

NEWS: World Obesity Federation released the World Obesity Atlas 2026

ABOUT 

• Atlasà provides global, regional and national estimates of rising obesity among children and adolescents.
• Obesityàclassified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a chronic, relapsing disease characterising abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health.
• Diagnosisà made by measuring people’s weight and height and by calculating the Body Mass Index (BMI): weight (kg)/height² (m²).
• For school-age children (aged 5-19 years)= obesity is greater than 2 standard deviations above the WHO Growth Reference median.

Key Highlights of the Report

Global Scenario

• Obesity: Among school-age children (aged 5-19 years) à increased from 4% in 1975 to nearly 20% in 2022.
• The majority resides in middle-income countries.
• Obesity in childhoodà frequently persists into adulthood= increasing the risk of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.
• High Burden Countriesà Ten countries (with highest burden in China, India, and US) alone account for over 200 million school-age children with high Body Mass Index (BMI).

Indian Scenario

• Indiaà Ranks second globally for children who are overweight and living with obesity.
• 41 million school-age children in India have high BMI.
• In 2025à about 8.39 million children had BMI-attributed metabolic dysfunction-associated liver disease (MASLD), while 2.98 million suffered from BMI-attributed hypertension.