Average BMI in Libya
Men in Libya have an average BMI of 27.1, women 29.6. Both means fall in the WHO overweight band for men and overweight for women. That puts Libya 19th 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.
Libya among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Libya
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Libya has a higher BMI than 70% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Libya is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 21.6 and 32.6; for women the middle two thirds run from 23.4 to 35.8. Compared with the global mean, men here are 2.6 points higher and women 4.8 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 Libya?
- 27.1 for men and 29.6 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 28.4, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Libya are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 65% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 30% are at 30 or more. For women it is 77% and 47%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Libya?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Libya it is higher than about 35% of men and 23% of women. So for men here it is below the middle of the pack.
- How does Libya compare with Syria?
- Men in Syria average 27.6 against 27.1 in Libya; women 29.5 against 29.6. Syria ranks 18th, Libya 19th.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Libya 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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