India has witnessed a significant rise in obesity and high blood sugar levels among adults, according to preliminary findings from the National Family Health Survey‑6 (NFHS‑6), underscoring a growing burden of lifestyle‑related diseases.
The survey shows that 30.7% of women aged 15 to 49 years were overweight or obese in 2023- 24, up from 24% in NFHS‑5 conducted during 2019- 21, while the corresponding proportion for men increased from 22.9% to 27.3% in the same period.
NFHS‑6 also reports a substantial jump in elevated blood sugar levels among adults, a key risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Among women aged 15 years and above, the share of those with high or very high blood sugar, or on medication to control it, rose from 13.5% in NFHS‑5 to 17.8% in NFHS‑6, while among men the figure increased from 15.6% to 20.9%.
Public health experts cited in the survey coverage link these trends to rapid urbanisation, sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets and rising stress levels, warning that India could see a further spike in non‑communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke if preventive action is not scaled up.
The findings come even as India records gains in some traditional health indicators, including improvements in child nutrition and maternal health outcomes, suggesting a complex “double burden” of undernutrition in some groups and over‑nutrition‑related disorders in others. Health policymakers and clinicians say the NFHS‑6 data should serve as a wake‑up call for strengthening primary care, screening for metabolic risk factors, and community‑level interventions around diet, physical activity and early management of obesity and high blood sugar.
