Average BMI in Afghanistan
Men in Afghanistan have an average BMI of 22.7, women 24.2. Both means fall in the WHO healthy weight band for men and healthy weight for women. That puts Afghanistan 150th of 186 countries in our data, ranked from highest BMI to lowest.
Key numbers
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Estimated share in each WHO category
Columns may not sum to 100 because of rounding. Real BMI distributions have a longer right tail than a normal curve, so the obese share here is probably a few points low.
Afghanistan among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Afghanistan
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Afghanistan has a higher BMI than 91% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Afghanistan is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 17.2 and 28.2; for women the middle two thirds run from 18.0 to 30.4. Compared with the global mean, men here are 1.8 points lower and women 0.6 points lower.
BMI does not distinguish muscle from fat, and the WHO bands were set on European populations. For South and East Asian populations the same BMI carries more health risk, which is why several countries there use 23 and 27.5 as their own cut-offs.
Questions
- What is the average BMI in Afghanistan?
- 22.7 for men and 24.2 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 23.4, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Afghanistan are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 34% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 9% are at 30 or more. For women it is 45% and 17%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Afghanistan?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Afghanistan it is higher than about 66% of men and 55% of women. For men here that is above the median, so it reads as slimmer than most.
- How does Afghanistan compare with Guinea-Bissau?
- Men in Guinea-Bissau average 22.9 against 22.7 in Afghanistan; women 24.2 against 24.2. Guinea-Bissau ranks 149th, Afghanistan 150th.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Afghanistan is one of them, so the SD, the category shares and the percentiles above use the global spread rather than one measured here.
Source: NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, Lancet 2017, age-standardised mean BMI for 2016. Percentiles on this page are our estimate from a normal distribution with the stated mean and SD.
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Check your BMIAlso by country: Average height by country and Life expectancy by country.