Average BMI in Malaysia
Men in Malaysia have an average BMI of 25.4, women 26.3. Both means fall in the WHO overweight band for men and overweight for women. That puts Malaysia 105th 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.
Malaysia among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Malaysia
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Malaysia has a higher BMI than 80% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Malaysia is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 19.9 and 30.9; for women the middle two thirds run from 20.1 to 32.5. Compared with the global mean, men here are 0.9 points higher 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 Malaysia?
- 25.4 for men and 26.3 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 25.9, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Malaysia are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 53% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 20% 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 Malaysia?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Malaysia it is higher than about 47% of men and 42% of women. For men here that is roughly the median.
- How does Malaysia compare with Bosnia and Herzegovina?
- Men in Bosnia and Herzegovina average 26.5 against 25.4 in Malaysia; women 25.3 against 26.3. Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks 104th, Malaysia 105th.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Malaysia 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.