Population-Based Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity in German Youth: Findings from MoMo 2.0 and Comparison with KiGGS

Objective

Overweight and obesity in childhood and adolescence are major risk factors for health problems across the lifespan. This manuscript reports the current prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents aged 4-17□years living in Germany and compares them with previous population-based results.

Methods

A representative, cross-sectional sample of 4-17-year-olds was drawn following a multistage sampling process. Analyses are based on weight and height of 3,978 individuals measured in the field by trained test instructors between 2023-2025. Overweight and obesity classification was defined using age- and sex-specific body-mass-index percentiles. To allow for comparability of prevalence estimates derived from previous assessment waves and other panel studies dating back to 2005, an alignment factor was derived using an inverse probability of participation weighting approach. Together with sampling weights, the alignment factor was applied to obtain current, representative prevalence estimates of overweight and obesity.

Results

The aligned, weighted prevalence of overweight and obesity was 16.1% (95%□CI□[14.5-17.9%]), whereas prevalence of obesity was 6.7% (95%□CI [5.5-8.1%]). Age- and sex-specific prevalence rates are reported and compared to previous waves.

Conclusions

The current prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents aged 4-17 years living in Germany remains stable over the past two decades.

Study Importance Questions

What is already known about this subject?

• Youth overweight and obesity are a major public-health problem with lasting health consequences

• The last national German estimates (KiGGS, 2014-2017) are nearly a decade old, and newer studies are not directly comparable.

What are the new findings in your manuscript?

• In 2023-2025, 16.1% of German 4- to 17-year-olds were overweight and 6.7% had obesity, compared to KiGGS stabilizing over the last 20 years

• Modern alignment methods allow valid prevalence estimation across study designs and sample procedures, in the absence of new health surveillance data

How might your results change the direction of research or the focus of clinical practice?

• The plateau is no reason for complacency: effective structural prevention policies still need to be implemented and evaluated, continued health monitoring is necessary

• Future research should examine socioeconomic subgroups and use aligned surveillance to track whether the plateau persists.