About 72% of American adults are either overweight or obese. The most recent national survey data, collected from August 2021 through August 2023, found that 31.7% of U.S. adults age 20 and older are overweight and another 40.3% have obesity, including 9.7% with severe obesity. That leaves fewer than three in ten American adults at what’s classified as a “normal” weight.
How These Categories Are Defined
These numbers are based on Body Mass Index, a ratio of height to weight. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is classified as overweight. A BMI of 30 or higher is classified as obese, with severe obesity starting at 40. For a person who is 5’9″, overweight begins around 169 pounds and obesity at 203 pounds.
BMI has real limitations. It doesn’t distinguish between muscle and fat, and it was originally developed using data mostly from non-Hispanic white populations. In 2023, the American Medical Association adopted a policy acknowledging that BMI loses predictive value when applied to individuals and recommended it be used alongside other measures like waist circumference, body composition, and metabolic markers rather than as a standalone number.
How the Numbers Have Changed Over Time
The share of Americans who are overweight (but not obese) has stayed remarkably stable for decades, hovering around 31% to 33% since the early 1960s. What has changed dramatically is the obesity rate. In 1960–1962, just 13.4% of adults had obesity. By the late 1980s it had climbed to 23.2%. It crossed the 30% mark around 1999–2000 and reached 40.3% in the most recent survey period.
Severe obesity has seen an even steeper climb. Fewer than 1% of adults qualified as severely obese in the early 1960s. Today that figure is nearly 10%.
Rates Among Children and Teens
Among Americans aged 2 to 19, roughly 35% are overweight or obese. The 2017–2018 national survey found that 19.3% of children and adolescents have obesity (including 6.1% with severe obesity) and another 16.1% are overweight. Children are measured differently than adults, using age- and sex-specific growth charts rather than fixed BMI cutoffs, but the overall trajectory mirrors what’s happened in adults over the past several decades.
Differences by Race, Ethnicity, and Geography
Obesity rates vary significantly across demographic groups. Among adults, non-Hispanic Black Americans have the highest obesity prevalence at 49.6%, followed by Hispanic adults at 44.8% and non-Hispanic white adults at 42.2%. Non-Hispanic Asian adults have the lowest prevalence at 17.4%. These gaps reflect longstanding differences in access to affordable healthy food, neighborhood walkability, healthcare access, and other structural factors.
Geography matters too. Every U.S. state now has an adult obesity rate of at least 25%. Mississippi and West Virginia have the highest rates, each at 40% or above. Eight states plus the District of Columbia fall in the lowest bracket, with obesity rates between 25% and 30%. The South and parts of the Midwest consistently report the highest numbers, while states in the West and Northeast tend to be lower.
What This Costs
The financial burden is enormous. Obesity-related medical spending in the United States reached nearly $173 billion in 2019. On an individual level, a person with obesity spends about $1,861 more per year on medical care than someone at a normal weight. Those costs come from higher rates of conditions closely linked to excess weight: type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, sleep apnea, and joint problems. The economic impact extends beyond healthcare into lost productivity, disability, and reduced quality of life.
Putting the Numbers in Context
The fact that nearly three-quarters of American adults exceed what’s considered a healthy weight makes the U.S. an outlier even among wealthy nations. But it’s worth noting that the overall obesity rate appears to have plateaued slightly in recent years, hovering around 40% rather than continuing the steep climb seen from the 1980s through the 2010s. Whether that plateau holds, or whether newer weight-loss medications shift these numbers, remains to be seen. For now, overweight and obesity remain the statistical norm for American adults, not the exception.