Increase in 1020 Women Pursuing Thin and Lean Bodies
Extreme Dietary Controls Like Fasting and Purging to Achieve Desired Body Shape
Seeking Partners via Social Networking Services (SNS)
Experts Say "Continuous Exposure to Media-Preferred Appearance and Body Shapes Leads to Internalization"
[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] "I want to have a delicate atmosphere.", "I want to be the thinnest in my school."
Among women in their teens and twenties, the number of those wanting to create a skinny and thin body is increasing. They mainly lose weight through extreme fasting methods such as fasting, water-only fasting, 'meokto (eating and vomiting)', and 'ssipbat (chewing and spitting)'. Especially, the trend of people trying to lose weight increases during summer when clothes are lighter or before the start of school semesters.
Among them, people with thin bodies are called 'Gaemalla' or 'Ppyeomalra', becoming objects of admiration. One Twitter user expressed envy about a celebrity with a body type that does not gain weight easily, saying, "They are a 'Gaemalla human' from birth, so they live a Godsaeng." Godsaeng is a newly coined word combining God and life, meaning an ideal and wonderful life. This implies that having a thin body is considered a prerequisite for an ideal life.
They also recruit people to practice extreme fasting together through social networking services (SNS) like Twitter. They follow each other's accounts and share methods for diet control, photos, and phrases that stimulate the will to lose weight. They call the encouragement to eat from concerned people around them 'meokim' and teach know-how such as 'how not to be meokim-ed' and 'how to avoid meokim'.
Teenagers sometimes look for others with the same goal on Twitter for extreme management such as maintaining a thin body. [Image source=Yonhap News]
There is also a set standard for the ideal weight. People with a weight equal to their height minus 120~125 or 125~130 are referred to as 'Gaemalla human' and 'Ppyeomalra human', respectively. For example, a person who is 160cm tall would have to weigh 35~40kg (height minus 120~125) to be considered a 'Gaemalla human'. According to the Korean Society for the Study of Obesity and obesity treatment guidelines, this corresponds to severe underweight based on BMI standards.
Especially, many of these individuals introduce themselves as teenagers, raising concerns. According to the National Health Insurance Service last year, among 8,417 anorexia patients in Korea over the past five years, 1,208 (14.4%) were female adolescents in their teens, the largest proportion. Among them, males accounted for 2,071 (24.6%) and females 6,346 (75.4%), with female patients more than three times as many.
The obsessive fixation on a thin body can easily lead to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Because even a slight weight gain causes anxiety and self-loathing, leading to extreme measures.
For students in their growth period, excessive dieting influenced by appearance-centered values, a society that prefers thin bodies, and media can be harmful to growth and development. Extreme dietary restrictions can cause anemia, hair loss, vulnerability to infectious diseases, and especially during adolescence when brain growth is ongoing, can lead to obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression.
Moreover, anorexia is known to have the highest mortality rate among mental illnesses. In January, a famous influencer in Germany died of circulatory system heart failure caused by anorexia. According to a friend's testimony, the only meal he had recently was a cup of coffee two days before his death.
Experts pointed to the growth process as the cause of this phenomenon. Professor Lee Dong-gwi of Yonsei University’s Psychology Department explained, "If during the growth process, the primary caregiver or media continuously sends messages that one must manage appearance and body shape, this becomes internalized. As the preferred appearance and body shape by the media are imprinted internally, the individual increasingly cares about how others see them and becomes more sensitive to it."
Regarding the tendency to recruit companions through SNS, he diagnosed, "They look for peers because they fear their willpower might weaken if they lose weight alone. It is also a psychological desire to feel that they are not alone and to receive comfort."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
