“If a lady weighs over 50 kg, she should be nuts” – this line told by a male protagonist of a Korean online drama Dam Naneun Jib to his girlfriend’s girlfriend went viral after being aired last yr since it touched upon a dark side of K-beauty – the obsession with skinny body types. The “50 kg myth” is a perfect created by Korean mainstream media by glorifying celebrities who openly discuss their weight being 40-something. K-pop idols often share their extreme food plan regimes with a view to achieve the under-50 ideal weight, with among the most shocking ones including Big Bang’s T.O.P. eating nothing but red bean jelly to lose 20 kg in 40 days or the girl group Nine Muses fitting your entire each day food intake into three tiny paper cups – also often called the “paper cup food plan.” Hand in hand with media-generated pressure goes the incontrovertible fact that most clothing in Korean department shops only is available in “free size” – comparable to UK 8, so finding anything larger is amazingly difficult. Body positivity activist Park Ji Won says she even got turned away walking right into a clothing store since the staff informed her “this isn’t where she ought to be looking.”

South Korea has the second lowest obesity rate (around 5%) out of all OED countries, where the typical is nineteen.5%. Nevertheless, a 2016 national survey revealed that over 60% Korean women and 41% men either were or desired to go on a food plan. For minors, the number was even higher for women – 72% of them (and 36% boys) thought they needed to drop some pounds. In response to Dr Yuli Kim, who specialises in treating patients with eating disorders, it’s estimated that one out of 4 Korean women of their teens and twenties suffer from an eating disorder, although the number may very well be greater because many don’t seek skilled help. Celebrities usually are not an exception – K-pop singer IU has admitted she was diagnosed with bulimia previously and singer Ailee opened up on the music programme Hidden Singer about her drastic food plan consisting of heavy exercising and eating only 500 calories a day with a view to give you the chance to go on stage. After losing 10 kg, weighing 49 kg at 166 cm, Ailee said her body was so weak it badly affected her singing abilities and made her struggle with depression in consequence.

It gets worse, celebrities who don’t fit the thin ideal continuously change into targets of fat-shaming. Two years ago a then 15-year-old member of the girl group Pristin was harassed by her fans online saying she was “too chubby to be an idol” and “ruined the visuals of the group,” which caused controversy given the singer’s very young age. Korean comedian Lee Guk Jo has opened up about her experience on the TV show Why Women Get Mad saying, “When male comedians are fat, they get told they’ve the blessed looks, but female comedians get told ‘Should you drop some pounds, you won’t make any money.’ Then 3-4 years after they are saying, ‘You must lose at the very least some weight, though.” Celebrities like Lee who’re considered “big” by Korean standards also often get solid for so-called mugbang – entertainment programmes where they’re filmed devouring large amounts of food making exaggerated reactions.

Taylor Tak, a Korean plus-sized model now based in Australia knows a thing or two about how damaging Korean skinny-obsessed beauty standards might be – career-wise and in personal life. Tak remembers that starting on the age of 10, she spent every summer and winter vacation in “food plan schools” – special programmes where she was understanding and eating lower than 1000 calories each day for months on end. Being “larger” than other women, she recalls men often saw her as a fetish and would refuse to fulfill her in public or abandon her in the course of the road. She only got into modelling after meeting a photographer in London who asked to take pictures of her. But returning to Korea was challenging – “in Korea, people think plus size model is a joke,” she says adding that the majority of her work has been for clients from overseas.

But things are changing. Plus-sized model and body positivity activist Kim Gee Yang decided to fight the shortage of representation of certain body types in Korean media by creating 66100 – a fashion culture magazine that celebrates diversity. “I desired to discuss beauty that’s unrelated to size, to reject the obsession with weight-reduction plan and appearance and show that folks mustn’t be limited by their size. I also felt there was a have to discuss various social phenomena and news events,” says Kim. She explains that Korean fashion magazines only feature plus-size models at certain times of the yr like summer when most Korean women feel compelled to go on a food plan, and don’t necessarily create an actual conversation about body positivity. 66100 stands for clothing sizes that are the smallest to be considered “plus-size” in Korea – 66 (UK 10) for girls and 100 (UK 38) for men. In addition to a magazine, 66100 also doubles as an internet clothing store carrying plus size clothing that shows all products on plus-size models, each of that are very rare in Korea.

Then there’s Yeom Yoon Hye and Bae Kyo Hyun, who met during a plus-size model contest held by the Korean retailer J-Style. Yeom was the winner and Bae the primary runner-up. In addition to modelling J-Style’s plus size collection, the duo have taken to social media to encourage other plus-size women to be happy with their figures. Their Instagram, which has over 100k followers to-date, showcases their vibrant fashion style, hashtagged #지금내가좋아 (“I like myself now”). “I like myself now” was even featured on national TV KBS, providing a rare likelihood for “larger” Korean women to discuss their experiences on broadcast slightly than be ridiculed for his or her weight.

When asked what the answer to Korea’s body shaming issues is, Kim Gee Yang stresses the responsibility the media has to vary people’s perceptions. “In a society where everyone seems to be weight-reduction plan purely for the sake of their looks, we want to speak more about what sort of problems it’s causing. Eating disorders, food plan addiction or self-hate, these have change into big issues in Korea and there must be a conversation about what we are able to do to forestall them, stop them from escalating much more and solve them.” Taylor Tak adds that the culture of fat-shaming is amplified by misogyny and we want to first do away with all the various restrictions regarding what a lady should appear like. Although each Kim and Tak agree that the battle for body positivity in Korea appears to be a protracted and difficult one, they and their peers don’t appear to be giving up anytime soon.