Average BMI in Costa Rica
Men in Costa Rica have an average BMI of 26.9, women 28.1. Both means fall in the WHO overweight band for men and overweight for women. That puts Costa Rica 37th of 186 countries in our data, ranked from highest BMI to lowest.
Key numbers
Advertisement
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.
Costa Rica among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Costa Rica
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Costa Rica has a higher BMI than 71% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Costa Rica is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 21.4 and 32.4; for women the middle two thirds run from 21.9 to 34.3. Compared with the global mean, men here are 2.4 points higher and women 3.3 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 Costa Rica?
- 26.9 for men and 28.1 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 27.5, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Costa Rica are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 64% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 29% are at 30 or more. For women it is 69% and 38%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Costa Rica?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Costa Rica it is higher than about 36% of men and 31% of women. So for men here it is below the middle of the pack.
- How does Costa Rica compare with Hungary?
- Men in Hungary average 28.4 against 26.9 in Costa Rica; women 26.7 against 28.1. Hungary ranks 36th, Costa Rica 37th.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Costa Rica 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.
Enter your height and weight and see your BMI percentile, globally or in one of the countries in the picker.
Check your BMIAlso by country: Average height by country and Life expectancy by country.