Indicator
Trends in adults who are overweight or obese
Published
5 June 2025
Last updated
23 October 2026
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key Points
- Across the UK, over 6 in 10 adults are classified as overweight or obese.
Obesity can be caused by eating and drinking more than our body needs or not doing enough physical activity. Our environment also plays a role – for example through advertising and the availability of healthy or unhealthy foods. Our ability to make healthy choices can also be impacted by other pressures such as income, work and caring responsibilities.
This chart shows trends in the percentage of adults classified as overweight or obese in the UK between 2010/11 and 2024/25.
- Across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the percentage of adults who are overweight or obese has increased slightly over the past decade.
- Northern Ireland has the highest percentage of overweight and obese adults at 66.7% in 2024/25. An increase from 59.6% in 2020/11. · The percentage of adults who are overweight and obese in Wales has increased from 57.2% in 2010 to 61.9% in 2024/25. This data is based entirely on self-reported height and weight, where typically people underestimate their body-mass-index and therefore overweight and obesity are underestimated. The percentage of overweight and obese adults in Wales should not be compared to the other countries.
- Overweight and obesity data presented is assessed using body-mass-index (BMI), which is the widely used and accepted method, and is important for tracking changes in population overweight and obesity levels over time. BMI has well-known limitations, for example it does not take account for the distribution of fat and NHS England recommend different overweight and obesity cut-offs for different ethnic groups.
- Data for England are weighted estimates from the Active Lives Survey using adjusted self-reported height and weight. - Data for Scotland are weighted estimates from the Scottish Health Survey using majority measured and some adjusted self-reported height and weight.
- Data for Wales are weighted estimates from Health Survey for Wales from 2010 to 2015 and the Welsh Health Survey from 2016/17. Data from these two surveys are not directly comparable. In 2020/21 the Welsh Health Survey moved to phone-based data collection and has remained mostly phone based since then, as such data from 2020/21 onwards should not be directly compared with previous years. These surveys only use self-reported height and weight.
- Data for Northern Ireland are weighted estimated from the Health Survey Northern Ireland using measured height and weight.
- Each survey has its own sampling methodologies, so results are only partially comparable. As data for Wales are based entirely on self-reported data, it is not directly comparable with other countries.
- Data for Scotland refer to the first calendar years only, whereas data for England and Northern Ireland refer to financial years. Data for Wales refer to calendar years until 2015, from 2016/17 onward refer to financial years except for 2021/21 which covers quarter 4 (January to March) only.
- Adult population refers to the 18+ population in England and the 16+ population in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Adults are classified as overweight or obese if their body-mass-index is greater than or equal to 25 kg/m2.
Source: Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, Fingertips, England, 2024/25; Scottish Government, Scottish Health Survey, 2024; Welsh Health Survey, 2015; National Survey for Wales, 2024/25; Health Survey Northern Ireland 2024/25.
