Obesity: Italia has the lowest rate in the EU – 6 out of 10 people are of normal weight
The EU average in 2025 stands at 16.3 per cent, more than double the Italian figure, which remains at 7 per cent
Key points
Obesity affects seven per cent of the population in Italia, the lowest rate in the entire European Union. And, albeit only slightly, the trend is improving compared with a few years ago. This is true not only of the obesity rate itself, but also of the other related figures: above all, the proportion of people of normal weight, who in Italia account for almost six in ten, an increase of four percentage points compared with 2022.
Eurostat definitions
Let’s take it step by step. The source of the statistics is Eurostat, which sets out the definitions: the obesity rate ‘is derived from the body mass index (BMI), which is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in metres. People aged 18 or over are considered obese if their BMI is 30 or above’.
The dataset is then supplemented by the category ‘“pre-obese”, which refers to people with a BMI of between 25 and 30’. This category, together with the ‘obese’ category, is grouped under the ‘overweight’ category.
Finally, the ‘underweight’ category refers to ‘people with a body mass index of less than 18.5’.
Obesity rate in Italia stands at 7%
Let’s return to the figures and see that the EU average in 2025 stands at 16.3 per cent, more than double the Italian figure, which remains at 7 per cent. As mentioned, this is by far the lowest among the 27 Member States, followed by Greece (12.8 per cent) and Romania (12.9 per cent). The highest, on the other hand, is in Malta (26.6 per cent), followed by Latvia (24.6 per cent) and Finland (23.2 per cent).
