Published Oct 09, 2026 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Oct 09, 2026 | 7:00 AM
The BMI indicators cover women aged 15-49 years. The survey excludes pregnant women and women who had a birth in the preceding two months.
Synopsis: More than half of women in Bengaluru Urban, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram have a BMI of 25 or above, NFHS-6 data shows. The findings reveal a sharp rise in overweight and obesity across several South Indian districts, even as underweight remains concentrated in parts of Telangana and Karnataka.
Nearly half or more of women in some of South India’s biggest cities and urban districts are overweight or obese, with Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram all crossing the 50 percent mark, according to NFHS-6 data.
In Bengaluru Urban, 55.3 percent of women aged 15-49 have a BMI of 25 or above, followed by 51.7 percent in Thiruvananthapuram and 50.4 percent in Hyderabad. The figures are based on the National Family Health Survey-6 (2023-24).
The numbers also show how sharply the picture has changed in some districts compared with NFHS-5. Bengaluru Urban’s share rose from 40.1 percent to 55.3 percent, an increase of 15.2 percentage points.
Thiruvananthapuram recorded a smaller increase, from 50.6 percent to 51.7 percent, while Hyderabad was the exception among the three, edging down from 51 percent to 50.4 percent.
The BMI indicators cover women aged 15-49 years. The survey excludes pregnant women and women who had a birth in the preceding two months from the women’s BMI calculation.
The findings point to a striking nutritional divide across South India: alongside districts where more than half of women are overweight or obese, several districts continue to record high proportions of women with a BMI below 18.5.
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Bengaluru Urban has the highest rate among the three cities, with 55.3 percent of women classified as overweight or obese, compared with 40.1 percent in NFHS-5.
The increase is not restricted to the urban district. In Bengaluru Rural, Karnataka, 51 percent of women are overweight or obese, up from 33.2 percent in NFHS-5, a rise of 17.8 percentage points.
Across Karnataka, 41.2 percent of women are overweight or obese, up from 30.2 percent in NFHS-5. The urban-rural difference is pronounced: 51.7 percent of urban women are overweight or obese compared with 33 percent of rural women.
At the same time, Karnataka has districts where underweight remains common. The state-level share of women with a BMI below 18.5 is 15.1 percent, with the figure rising to 18.6 percent among rural women.
Hyderabad presents a different trend.
The proportion of women who are overweight or obese fell marginally from 51 percent in NFHS-5 to 50.4 percent in NFHS-6. The district therefore remains just above the halfway mark despite the small decline.
Hyderabad is also an outlier in the broader Telangana picture. While the state recorded a rise in most comparable districts, Hyderabad was among the few districts where the proportion declined.
Telangana’s overall rate of overweight or obese women is 36.3 percent, compared with 30.1 percent in NFHS-5. But the urban-rural gap is large: 48.7 percent of urban women are overweight or obese compared with 31.7 percent of rural women.
The state simultaneously has the highest proportion of women with below-normal BMI among the seven states and Union Territories covered in the dataset, at 17.7 percent. This means Telangana’s nutritional picture contains both a substantial burden of overweight and obesity and a sizeable burden of low BMI.
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In Kerala’s capital district, 51.7 percent of women are overweight or obese, compared with 50.6 percent in NFHS-5.
Thiruvananthapuram is among the districts with the highest rates in Kerala. The state as a whole records 46.7 percent of women as overweight or obese, up from 38.2 percent in NFHS-5.
The urban-rural gap in Kerala is narrower than in Telangana and Karnataka. About 48.3 percent of urban women are overweight or obese compared with 45.1 percent of rural women.
Kerala’s increase is also visible beyond its capital. Kozhikode rose from 30.7 percent to 48.1 percent, while Kannur increased from 32.4 percent to 47.9 percent. Malappuram went from 36.6 percent to 48.6 percent.
The three cities are part of a much larger pattern across South India.
Of the 132 districts covered in the data, 13 record 50 percent or more of women as overweight or obese. The highest is Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh, at 59.2 percent, followed by Bengaluru Urban at 55.3 percent, Guntur in Andhra Pradesh at 53.7 percent and West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh at 53.4 percent.
Other districts crossing the 50 percent threshold include Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu at 52.9 percent, Puducherry at 52.2 percent, Hanumakonda in Telangana at 51.3 percent, Vellore in Tamil Nadu at 51 percent, Bengaluru Rural at 51 percent and Karaikal in Puducherry at 51.6 percent.
Krishna’s figure is particularly notable because it rose from 40.6 percent in NFHS-5 to 59.2 percent in NFHS-6, an increase of 18.6 percentage points.
Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh recorded an even larger increase in percentage points, rising from 23.8 percent to 45.9 percent, a 22.1-point increase. Hanumakonda in Telangana rose by 19.3 points, while Bengaluru Rural increased by 17.8 points.
Among the 117 districts for which an NFHS-5 comparison is available, the proportion of overweight or obese women increased in 110 districts and declined in only seven. The seven declines were recorded in Yanam, Coimbatore, Ranga Reddy, Kanniyakumari, Thiruvallur, Namakkal and Hyderabad.
The same data also shows that overweight and obesity have not replaced undernutrition everywhere.
Sixteen districts record at least 20 percent of women with a BMI below 18.5, with nine of them in Telangana and seven in Karnataka. No district in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala or Puducherry crosses the 20 percent mark.
Kumuram Bheem Asifabad in Telangana records the highest proportion at 28 percent, followed by Kamareddy at 26.3 percent, Raichur in Karnataka at 26.2 percent and Narayanpet in Telangana at 26 percent.
At the other end, Chennai has the lowest proportion of women with below-normal BMI, at 6.9 percent.
The contrast is particularly visible in Telangana. While Hyderabad has 50.4 percent of women classified as overweight or obese, the state also has districts such as Kumuram Bheem Asifabad where more than one in four women have a BMI below 18.5.
At the state level, 36.3 percent of Telangana women are overweight or obese while 17.7 percent have a below-normal BMI, compared with 41.2 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively, in Karnataka.
The NFHS-6 figures therefore show a South India where nutritional problems increasingly coexist: in some urban and relatively more affluent districts, overweight and obesity affect around half of women, while other districts continue to record substantial levels of low BMI.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
