World Obesity Day 2026: India's Child Obesity Numbers Soar, Ranks 2nd Worldwide India is grappling with a severe childhood obesity crisis, ranking second globally in the number of children affected by overweight and obesity, according to the World Obesity Atlas 2026. The report, released on World Obesity Day (March 4), highlights that 41 million school-age children in India (aged 5-19) had high Body Mass Index (BMI) in 2025, with 14 million classified as obese. This places India behind only China in absolute numbers, underscoring a growing public health challenge. The World Obesity Federation warns that without urgent intervention, the prevalence of obesity-linked conditions such as hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease will surge dramatically by 2040. The Atlas projects that by 2040, global childhood obesity rates will rise to 507 million children, with India’s share of high BMI cases expected to reach 41 million. The data draws from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), which has previously published findings in peer-reviewed journals like The Lancet, showing a sharp increase in childhood BMI over the past four decades. China leads with 62 million children affected, but India’s second-place ranking highlights the scale of the crisis in lower- and middle-income countries where obesity rates are rising fastest. The report warns of a looming epidemic of chronic diseases linked to childhood obesity. Projections indicate that by 2040, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) will rise from 8.39 million to 11.88 million cases, while high triglycerides, hyperglycaemia, and BMI-attributed hypertension are expected to increase significantly.#world_obesity_federation #world_obesity_atlas_2026 #ncd_risc #unicef #who
