Research question: What is the magnitude of overweight and obesity among young adult students of a medical college? Setting: All undergraduate medical college students of a private medical college in Pondicherry. Design: Facility based cross-sectional study. Using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire all subjects were interviewed after taking informed consent. Weight, height, waist circumference and hip circumference were measured. Overweight, obesity and central obesity was estimated by using standard criteria. Results: prevalence of overweight or obese was 26.7 % __ampersandsignamp; 35.2% resp. using the standards for Asian Indians and 29.1% and 3.8% resp. using the WHO cut-offs. About 23.3 5%and 10.9% of the subjects had larger waist circumferences and higher waist-hip ratios The prevalence was significantly more in males when compared to females. Conclusion: Overweight and obesity is a problem in this study group which calls for primary preventive measures like health education, dietary modification, physical activity and periodic screening.