New Delhi: Nearly one in three Indian women and more than one in four men are now overweight or obese, while one in five adult men is battling elevated blood sugar, the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6) data released by the Union Health Ministry Friday shows.
The numbers mark a sharp deterioration from the previous survey and signal what health experts are calling a nationwide metabolic epidemic.
The NFHS-6, conducted during 2023-24 across 6.79 lakh households in 715 districts by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai as the nodal agency, captures a country in the grip of a quiet but accelerating health crisis.
“NFHS-6 release is a timely reminder of a troubling nutrition paradox that India cannot afford to ignore,” said Dr Shalini Joshi, Additional Director of Internal Medicine and Preventive Health at Fortis Hospital, Bengaluru.
“These findings reinforce the importance of balanced nutrition, regular physical activity, early health screening and stronger public health action across all age groups. India’s nutrition challenge now has two faces, and both deserve equal attention,” she told ThePrint.
Dual burden of obesity & undernutrition
The survey showed a double burden of obesity and undernutrition. According to the survey data, the share of overweight or obese women has jumped from 24 percent in NFHS-5 to 30.7 percent in NFHS-6. Among men, it has climbed from 22.9 percent to 27.3 percent.
At the same time, undernutrition also persists. The proportion of men with below-normal BMI has worsened, rising from 16.2 percent to 19.7 percent, even as the undernutrition among women improved marginally, falling from 19.7 percent to 15 percent.
“The NFHS-6 data reflects a growing double burden of malnutrition where undernutrition and obesity are present together in the same communities and sometimes within the same families,” said Dr Ravikeerthy M, Senior Consultant Internal Medicine at Fortis Hospital, Bengaluru.
“Higher obesity rates point to more calorie-rich, nutrient-poor foods being consumed, plus sedentary routines, faulty sleep patterns, and elevated stress levels. At the same time, the rise in below-normal BMI among men suggests that food insecurity and uneven access to healthcare are still big concerns.”
A 2023 ICMR-INDIAB national study found that close to 29 percent adults have generalised obesity and nearly 40 percent have abdominal obesity—the fat that accumulates around the waist and internal organs.
The NFHS-6 findings have come just months after the Economic Survey 2025-26 sounded a similar alarm. Tabled in Parliament in January this year, it flagged the explosive growth of ultra-processed foods in India—whose retail sales grew more than 150 percent between 2009 and 2023—as a key driver of the obesity surge, noting that it was during this same period that obesity nearly doubled in both men and women.
“These numbers reflect more than a weight problem. They signal a growing epidemic of metabolic disease,” said Mumbai-based diabetologist Dr Rajiv Kovil. Obesity, he warned, does not travel alone. Fatty liver disease, heart disease, sleep apnea, infertility, and certain cancers are increasingly interconnected and are becoming major contributors to healthcare expenditure, disability, and premature mortality.
Dr Kovil pointed to a physiological peculiarity that makes India’s situation especially dangerous.
“Indians develop metabolic complications at lower body weights because of the thin-fat phenotype—higher visceral and ectopic fat despite relatively modest BMI values. As a result, many individuals who do not appear overtly obese may still be at high cardiometabolic risk,” he told ThePrint.
The diabetes surge
Alongside rising obesity, blood sugar levels among adults have risen sharply.
The proportion of women with high or very high blood sugar, or on medication to control it, has risen from 13.5 percent to 17.8 percent. Among men, it has jumped from 15.6 percent to 20.9 percent, meaning roughly one in five adult men in India now has elevated blood sugar.
The drivers, Dr Kovil said, are structural and behavioural. Rapid urbanisation, sedentary lifestyles, prolonged screen time, reduced physical activity, increased consumption of ultra-processed foods, sleep deprivation, and chronic stress have all contributed. Economic growth has improved food availability, but not nutritional quality.
Critically, this is no longer an urban or metropolitan phenomenon.
“The rise in obesity and diabetes is no longer confined to metropolitan cities. Smaller towns and rural India are witnessing similar trends, suggesting that lifestyle diseases are becoming a nationwide phenomenon,” Dr Kovil added.
The survey data showed that men consuming alcohol also edged upward, from 18.7 percent to 18.9 percent, adding another layer to the metabolic risk burden.
“NFHS-6 should serve as a wake-up call. If current trends continue, India risks facing a dual burden of disease—continuing infectious diseases alongside a rapidly expanding epidemic of obesity and metabolic disorders that could strain healthcare systems and impact national productivity for decades,” Dr Kovil said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: Lancet study links obesity to 1 in 10 infection deaths globally. What it means for India