Objective To explore the influence of obesity in surgical site infection(SSI) following spine surgery. Methods Literatures on relationship between obesity and spine surgery were collected. Data were extracted, checked, and analyzed with STATA 11.0 software by two researchers independently, fixed-effect model and random-effect model were used to analyze the combined OR value and its 95% confidence interval (95%CI). Results A total of 32 literatures involving 110 877 patients were included in the study. Most studies were thoracic or lumbar surgery. SSI rate in obesity group was higher than control group(OR,2.56[95%CI,1.95-3.36]). Stratified analysis result showed that incidence of infection in obese Caucasians was 2.50 times higher than that in control group(95%CI, 1.77-3.52), obese people in Asia was 2.77 times higher than that of people with normal weight(95%CI,1.81-4.22). Conclusion Among Caucasians and Asians, obese people are more likely to have SSI following spine surgery.