Average BMI in Tonga
Men in Tonga have an average BMI of 30.7, women 34.0. Both means fall in the WHO obese band for men and obese for women. That puts Tonga 2nd 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.
Tonga among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Tonga
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Tonga has a higher BMI than 45% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Tonga is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 25.2 and 36.2; for women the middle two thirds run from 27.8 to 40.2. Compared with the global mean, men here are 6.2 points higher and women 9.2 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 Tonga?
- 30.7 for men and 34.0 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 32.4, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Tonga are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 85% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 55% are at 30 or more. For women it is 93% and 74%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Tonga?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Tonga it is higher than about 15% of men and 7% of women. So for men here it is below the middle of the pack.
- How does Tonga compare with Samoa?
- Men in Samoa average 30.6 against 30.7 in Tonga; women 34.3 against 34.0. Samoa ranks 1st, Tonga 2nd.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Tonga 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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