Average BMI in Vanuatu
Men in Vanuatu have an average BMI of 25.7, women 27.0. Both means fall in the WHO overweight band for men and overweight for women. That puts Vanuatu 96th 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.
Vanuatu among its neighbours
What a given BMI means in Vanuatu
Read it as: a man with BMI 30 in Vanuatu has a higher BMI than 78% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Vanuatu is 5.5. About two thirds of men have a BMI between 20.2 and 31.2; for women the middle two thirds run from 20.8 to 33.2. Compared with the global mean, men here are 1.2 points higher and women 2.2 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 Vanuatu?
- 25.7 for men and 27.0 for women, with standard deviations of 5.5 and 6.2. Averaged across the sexes that is 26.4, against a global figure of 24.6.
- What share of adults in Vanuatu are overweight or obese?
- Our estimate from the mean and SD: 55% of men have a BMI of 25 or more, and 22% are at 30 or more. For women it is 63% and 31%. These assume a normal curve, so the true obesity shares are likely a few points higher.
- Is a BMI of 25 high in Vanuatu?
- A BMI of 25 is the WHO line between healthy weight and overweight. In Vanuatu it is higher than about 45% of men and 37% of women. So for men here it is below the middle of the pack.
- How does Vanuatu compare with Russia?
- Men in Russia average 26.0 against 25.7 in Vanuatu; women 26.7 against 27.0. Russia ranks 95th, Vanuatu 96th.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Vanuatu 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.