In 2022, BBC News published NFHS-5: Indians are getting fatter - and it's a big problem!. They mentioned that almost 23% of men and 24% of women are overweight, as discovered by NFHS-5 survey by Govt of India. But if we were to redo the calculations as per India-Specific BMI Cut-Offs for Obesity, we disover that actually 23% of men and 24% of women belong to the obese category!

In 1990, except for two states (Punjab and Telangana), no state had over 14% of its population classified as overweight (BMI ≥ 25). However, by 2016, only a handful of states had less than 14% of its population classified as overweight. In fact, many states have over 29% of adults as overweight (states colored red in the infographic above). If India-specific BMI cut-offs (described in an earlier section above) were used, all of these overweight individuals would be classified as obese!

Source: Wikipedia article: Obesity in India

What are the top 10 regions in India with maximum %age of overweight or obese people (using WHO BMI cut-off value 25 for overweight and 30 for obesity)? See pic below. Delhi really stands out! 45% of males & 49% of females in Delhi were overweight or obese in 2007!

If we were to use India-Specific BMI Cut-Offs for Obesity developed by Indian scientists in 2009, the BMI cut-off for obesity reduces from 30 to 25. And BMI cut-off for overweight reduces from 25 to 23. With the new cut-off, all of these individuals (45% of males in Delhi & 49% of females in Delhi, in 2007) would have been classified as obese! That's a mind-boggling statistic!

Source: National Family Health Survey (NFHS), India, 2007. See Tables 10.23.1 and 10.23.2 on pages 308-309. Wikipedia article: Obesity in India has the table shown above.

Research paper: Forecasting the prevalence of overweight and obesity in India to 2040 by Shammi Luhar et al, PLoS One, Feb 2020.

Projections for 2040: The paper above estimates that by 2040, 30.5% of men and 27.4% of women will be overweight (BMI between 25 and 30), another 9.5% of men and 13.9% of women will be obese (BMI ≥ 30). In other words, approximately 40% of men and women are projected to have BMI ≥ 25 (overweight or obese) by 2040.

But wait a minute! If we were to apply the India-Specific BMI Cut-Offs for Obesity developed by Indian scientists in 2009, all of these individuals (40% of men and women) will be classified as obese in 2040! Mind-boggling!