Average BMI in Bahrain
Men in Bahrain have an average BMI of 24.9, women 24.8. Both means fall in the WHO healthy weight band for men and healthy weight for women. That puts Bahrain 123rd 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.
Bahrain among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Bahrain
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Bahrain has a higher BMI than 82% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Bahrain is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 19.4 and 30.4; for women the middle two thirds run from 18.6 to 31.0. Compared with the global mean, men here are 0.4 points higher and women 0.0 points higher.
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 Bahrain?
- 24.9 for men and 24.8 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 24.9, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Bahrain are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 49% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 18% are at 30 or more. For women it is 49% and 20%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Bahrain?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Bahrain it is higher than about 51% of men and 51% of women. For men here that is roughly the median.
- How does Bahrain compare with Sao Tome and Principe?
- Men in Sao Tome and Principe average 24.0 against 24.9 in Bahrain; women 25.8 against 24.8. Sao Tome and Principe ranks 122nd, Bahrain 123rd.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Bahrain 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.