Percentage of Canadian adults who were overweight or obese from 2015 to 2023

In 2023, around 30 percent of adults aged 18 years and older in Canada were obese, while 35.5 percent were overweight. Although the percentage of overweight adults stayed about the same from 2015 to 2022, the percentage of obese adults in the same time period increased by about four percentage points. In 2023, there were around nine million adults in Canada who were obese, while the number of adults who were overweight was almost 11 million. 

Adolescent obesity

The share of Canadian adolescents who are overweight or obese has slowly increased since 2005. In 2022, around 30 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 17 years were either overweight and obese. The total number of obese or overweight Canadian adolescents in 2022 was around 673 thousand. By 2030, it is estimated that Canada will have over 1.1 million children who are obese.

Deaths from obesity

Being overweight or obese are major health problems that can result in early death. In 2021, it was estimated that around seven percent of all deaths in Canada could be attributed to obesity. At that time, there were around 28 deaths per 100,000 population in Canada that could be attributed to obesity. Diabetes, which is also related to obesity, accounted for about 2.3 percent of all deaths in Canada in 2022, making it the seventh leading cause of death that year.