Average BMI in Botswana
Men in Botswana have an average BMI of 22.6, women 26.3. Both means fall in the WHO healthy weight band for men and overweight for women. That puts Botswana 128th 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.
Botswana among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Botswana
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Botswana 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 Botswana is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 17.1 and 28.1; for women the middle two thirds run from 20.1 to 32.5. Compared with the global mean, men here are 1.9 points lower and women 1.5 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 Botswana?
- 22.6 for men and 26.3 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 24.5, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Botswana are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 33% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 9% are at 30 or more. For women it is 58% and 28%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Botswana?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Botswana it is higher than about 67% of men and 42% of women. For men here that is above the median, so it reads as slimmer than most.
- How does Botswana compare with Thailand?
- Men in Thailand average 24.0 against 22.6 in Botswana; women 25.1 against 26.3. Thailand ranks 127th, Botswana 128th.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Botswana 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.