For decades, India’s public health agenda has focused on undernutrition and infectious diseases. Today, the country faces a different challenge.
- India ranks second globally, with 41 million children living with high BMI and obesity in 2025.
- The National ICMR-INDIAB study documented that an alarming 254 million Indian adults were living with generalised obesity, with a higher prevalence among women, alongside millions with diabetes and hypertension, underscoring the scale of India’s growing metabolic disease burden.
Yet obesity is still too often viewed as a lifestyle issue rather than the chronic, progressive, relapsing disease that current evidence describes.
Sources: World Obesity Federation estimates and UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (2025) , Metabolic non-communicable disease health report of India: the ICMR-INDIAB national cross-sectional study
Why obesity should be recognised as a chronic disease
A recent multi-author publication led by renowned endocrinologist Dr. Sanjay Kalra highlights the need to formally recognise obesity as a chronic, progressive disease that requires timely screening, evidence-based treatment, and long-term management. This shift in perspective matters because obesity is closely linked to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, dyslipidaemia, and other non-communicable diseases, all of which contribute to rising healthcare costs, productivity losses, and long-term economic burden.
BMI limitations in the Indian population
India’s obesity profile differs from that of many Western populations. South Asians develop obesity-related complications at lower BMI levels, which is why Indian guidelines define overweight as 23–24.9 kg/m² and obesity as ≥25 kg/m², lower than global cut-offs. As a result, BMI alone may underestimate the true burden of obesity, leaving many high-risk individuals unidentified until metabolic complications have already developed.
How much weight loss improves health
Current evidence shows that not all weight loss delivers the same health benefits:
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A 5–10% reduction in body weight improves HbA1c, blood pressure, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol.
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A ≥10% reduction in body weight is associated with substantially higher rates of type 2 diabetes remission
Treatment goals should focus on clinically meaningful weight loss rather than simply achieving any reduction in body weight.
India’s obesity crisis is about far more than rising prevalence. It is about identifying high-risk individuals before complications develop and treating obesity as the chronic disease it is. As obesity-related conditions continue to rise across medicine, cardiology, nephrology, and primary care, the question is whether our healthcare system is ready to diagnose and treat obesity with the urgency it demands.
Could formally recognising obesity as a chronic disease help reduce stigma and encourage more people to seek timely treatment?
MBH/PS