More than half of adults in the EU were overweight in 2025, with 16.3% classed as obese.
Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, while “pre-obese” refers to a BMI between 25 and 30, Eurostat said in a release on Friday.
A further 35.4% of people aged 18 or over fell into the pre-obese category in 2025.
Men were more likely to be overweight than women, with an obesity rate of 17.4% among men compared with 15.3% among women.
Pre-obesity was recorded for 41.9% of men and 29.3% of women, while women were more likely to be underweight at 2.9% compared with 1.0% of men.
Malta recorded the highest obesity rate in the EU in 2025, at 26.6% of adults. Latvia followed at 24.6% and Finland at 23.2%.
Malta highest, Italy lowest
Italy had the lowest obesity rate among EU countries at 7.0%, Eurostat reported.
Greece and Romania followed, at 12.8% and 12.9% respectively.
The obesity rate is used as an indicator to monitor two UN Sustainable Development Goals — SDG 2 on zero hunger and SDG 3 on good health and well-being.
