Ireland Fitness & Obesity Statistics (2024–2025)

Key statistics at a glance

• 21% of people in Ireland aged 15+ are living with obesity, and a further 35% are overweight — 56% combined. (Source: Healthy Ireland Survey 2024, gov.ie)
• 63% of Irish men are overweight or obese, compared with 50% of women. (Source: Healthy Ireland Survey 2024)
• Only 41% of people in Ireland meet the National Physical Activity Guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate activity a week — down from 46% in 2019. (Source: Department of Health press release, gov.ie)
• The HSE spent an average of €550,000 per day in 2025 on weight-loss and diabetes injections (GLP-1 drugs) for patients on free drugs schemes. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• Roughly 80,000 patients received those injections through free drugs schemes in 2025. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• Overweight and obesity are estimated to cost the Republic of Ireland €1.13 billion a year. (Source: Safefood / UCC research)

Obesity in Ireland

The Healthy Ireland Survey 2024 interviewed a representative sample of 7,398 people aged 15 and over between October 2023 and April 2024. (gov.ie)

• It found an obesity rate of 21% and an overweight rate of 35% among people aged 15+. (Source: Healthy Ireland Survey 2024)
• That means 56% of the population aged 15+ carries more weight than is healthy. (Source: Healthy Ireland Survey 2024)
• Men are worse off than women: 63% of men are overweight or obese versus 50% of women. (Source: Healthy Ireland Survey 2024)
• The CSO's Irish Health Survey 2024 (adults 18+, surveyed November–December 2024) puts the adult obesity rate at 23.8%. (Source: CSO Irish Health Survey 2024)
• Obesity peaks in the 55–64 age group at 30.1%, compared with 13.6% among 18–24 year olds. (Source: CSO Irish Health Survey 2024)
• Despite those numbers, 75.8% of Irish adults rate their own general health as "good or very good". (Source: CSO Irish Health Survey 2024)

Ireland is not an outlier on any of this. Ireland against the rest of Europe on weight and activity puts these figures beside the Eurostat and WHO ones, with the sources named the same way.

Physical activity in Ireland

• 41% of people report meeting the National Physical Activity Guidelines — at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. (Source: Department of Health, gov.ie)
• That is a fall from 46% when the Healthy Ireland Survey last measured activity in 2019. (Source: Department of Health, gov.ie)
• 8% of people report doing no physical activity at all in the previous seven days. (Source: Department of Health, gov.ie)
• Sport Ireland's Irish Sports Monitor 2024 found 49% of adults — about 2.09 million people — regularly participate in sport, an all-time high. (Source: Sport Ireland)
• 40% of adults (roughly 1.7 million people) are classed as "highly active", meeting the guidelines through sport and recreational walking combined. (Source: Irish Sports Monitor 2024, Sport Ireland)
• Personal exercise — the gym and fitness classes — is Ireland's most popular activity, with 18% of adults doing it in the previous week, ahead of swimming (8%), running (7%) and cycling (5%). (Source: Irish Sports Monitor 2024)
• 18% of Irish adults are classed as sedentary. (Source: Irish Sports Monitor 2024)
• For context: the World Health Organization reports that 31% of adults worldwide — about 1.8 billion people — do not meet recommended activity levels. (Source: WHO physical activity fact sheet)
• The HSE recommends adults do at least 30 minutes of moderate activity 5 days a week — 2 hours 30 minutes total. (Source: HSE, hse.ie)

Two of those numbers look like they contradict each other: record sport participation, and fewer of us hitting the guidelines than in 2019. Both are true, and how active Ireland actually is works through why.

Weight-loss injections: what the State is spending

• Figures released to BreakingNews.ie under Freedom of Information show the HSE spent an average of €550,000 every day in 2025 on GLP-1 injections (Ozempic and Saxenda) for patients on free drugs schemes. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• Total spend on Ozempic and Saxenda between January 2023 and September 2025 was €212 million. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• By scheme over that period: €161.9 million under the Long-Term Illness scheme, €41.2 million under the medical card (GMS), and €8.8 million under the Drugs Payment Scheme. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• Around 80,000 patients received the medications through free drugs schemes in 2025. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• In the first eight months of 2025 that broke down as 59,279 patients on the Long-Term Illness scheme, 17,968 medical card holders, and 3,168 on the Drugs Payment Scheme. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• Ozempic is funded for diabetes treatment, not weight management; Saxenda is funded for weight management; Wegovy and Mounjaro are under review for State reimbursement. (Source: BreakingNews.ie)
• Privately, Wegovy launched in Ireland in March 2025 at a cost of roughly €220 a month. (Source: The Irish Times)

The cost of obesity to Ireland

• Safefood-funded research by University College Cork estimated the annual cost of overweight and obesity in the Republic of Ireland at €1.13 billion. (Source: Safefood)
• 35% of that (€398 million) was direct healthcare costs — hospital, GP and drug costs. (Source: Safefood)
• The remaining 65% (€728 million) was indirect costs from lost productivity and absenteeism. (Source: Safefood)
• The biggest driver of the direct healthcare costs was cardiac disease, at 44%. (Source: Safefood)

Note: that Safefood/UCC study dates from 2012, so the true cost today is almost certainly higher — the €212 million spent on GLP-1 drugs alone since 2023 suggests as much.

A national bill is a hard thing to picture. What carrying extra weight costs Ireland breaks the same figures down to what they mean for one household, and what the free version of the fix costs.

Sources

• Healthy Ireland Survey 2024 — gov.ie
• Department of Health press release on the 2024 survey — gov.ie
• Irish Health Survey 2024 — CSO
• Irish Sports Monitor 2024 — Sport Ireland
• HSE spent over €500k a day last year on weight-loss jabs — BreakingNews.ie
• The cost of overweight and obesity on the island of Ireland — Safefood
• Physical activity fact sheet — WHO
• Why being active helps your health — HSE