Americas · Country profile
Obesity in Barbados
39.4% of adults live with obesity (2024). That ranks 25th highest of 199 countries.
39.4%
of adults live with obesity (2024)
Likely range 33.0%–45.9%
Source: WHO
88 thousand
adults with obesity (estimated number)
WHO rate × UN population
Source: WHO; UN WPP 2024
22.7%
of children & teens (5–19) live with obesity (2024)
Source: WHO
#25
highest adult obesity out of 199 countries
#1 = highest share
Source: WHO
The story of Barbados in numbers
In 2024, about 39.4% of adults in Barbados were living with obesity — about 1 in 3 adults, according to World Health Organization estimates (the likely range is 33.0% to 45.9%). That is roughly 88 thousand people aged 18 and over.
That is higher than the world average of 16.2%, and ranks 25th highest out of 199 countries. It is above the average for WHO’s Americas region (34.4%).
Back in 1980, the figure was 11.2%. Since then it has gone up by 28.2 percentage points — about 3.5 times the 1980 level. In people, that is a change from about 17 thousand to 88 thousand adults, partly because the population itself changed.
Women are more likely to live with obesity than men: 50.0% compared with 28.0%.
Among children and teenagers aged 5 to 19, 22.7% were living with obesity in 2024, compared with 3.8% in 1980 — around 12 thousand young people.
For context, 22.4% of adults had diabetes in 2022, 44.0% of adults did not get enough physical activity in 2022 and the food supply provided about 3,118 calories per person per day in 2023. These numbers don’t prove what causes obesity, but they help paint the picture.
Barbados has a national tax on sugar-sweetened drinks, first introduced in 2015, according to the World Bank’s Global SSB Tax Database.
How it changed
Adults with obesity in Barbados: men, women and the world
What this meansSince 1980, the share of men went from 5.3% to 28.0%, and women from 16.6% to 50.0%.
- Men
- Women
- World
Show the numbers as a table
| Year | Men | Women | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 5.3% | 16.6% | 5.4% |
| 1985 | 6.6% | 19.2% | 6.0% |
| 1990 | 8.3% | 22.2% | 6.7% |
| 1995 | 10.5% | 25.7% | 7.6% |
| 2000 | 13.4% | 29.7% | 8.7% |
| 2005 | 16.6% | 33.9% | 10.1% |
| 2010 | 19.7% | 38.1% | 11.5% |
| 2015 | 22.6% | 42.5% | 13.0% |
| 2020 | 25.5% | 46.7% | 14.6% |
| 2024 | 28.0% | 50.0% | 16.2% |
Age-standardized WHO estimates. Shaded bands show the 95% uncertainty range.
Source: WHO Global Health Observatory.
Children & teens (5–19) with obesity in Barbados
What this meansSince 1980, the share of boys went from 3.4% to 21.9%, and girls from 4.1% to 23.6%.
- Boys
- Girls
BMI-for-age more than 2 standard deviations above the WHO growth reference median.
Source: WHO Global Health Observatory.
Barbados compared (2024)
What this meansHow Barbados’s adult obesity rate compares with its region, countries at a similar income level, and the world.
- Barbados39.4%
- Americas (WHO region)34.4%
- High income countries24.7%
- World16.2%
Source: WHO Global Health Observatory.
Food supply: calories per person per day in Barbados
What this meansThe food available per person went from 2,500 calories a day in 1961 to 3,118 in 2023. This counts food available, not food actually eaten.
- Barbados
- World
Countries ranked nearby
- 22. Kuwait40.4%
- 23. Saudi Arabia40.1%
- 24. Iraq39.7%
- 25. Barbados39.4%
- 26. Fiji39.0%
- 27. Panama37.7%
- 28. Mexico37.4%
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