One in three adults in Canada is obese

After a week off, we’re back with another installment of our Chart of the Week. This week, we’re exploring obesity in Canada using data Statistics Canada published as part of an infographic released on April 9, 2026. A person is considered to have obesity if their body mass index (BMI) — a ratio of their weight to height, calculated by dividing the person’s height in kilograms by the square of the person’s height in metres — is 30kg/m² and higher.

The proportion of Canadian adults aged 18 and older with obesity has been increasing steadily over the past few decades. In 2024, one in three (30.8%) adults in Canada had obesity, compared to one in five (20.5%) in 2000. That represents more than a 10 percentage point increase during this period. If we applied these proportions to the population figures for these reference years, approximately ## adults had obesity in 2000, compared with ## in 2024.

Obesity in adults has been associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, chronic back pain, and several types of cancer.

Data for this week’s chart comes from Statistics Canada’s Weight change over time and obesity in Canada Infographic.