One Out of 10 Students Obese
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
One out of every 10 Korean students is obese, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development said Thursday. According to the annual statistics from the ministry, the average obesity rate among elementary and secondary school students was 11.6 percent.
The obesity rate was 11.2 percent for middle school students and 12.8 for high school students. The figure was higher in proportion to the age of the student. Also, boys showed higher rates than girls.
The ministry concluded the results reflect poor eating habits and lack of exercise. ``Older students tend to eat more high-calorie fast foods such as hamburgers and coke. Also they don't have much time to exercise due to college admission preparations,'' the ministry official said.
For the research, a total of 112,191 students from 468 schools were sampled nationwide. Especially, the portion of students who were suffering from ``serious obesity'' has increased from 0.77 percent of the total in 2004, to 0.78 percent in 2005 and further to 0.84 percent last year. Students, who are overweight from the standard figure by more than 50 percent, belong to the seriously obese group. In accordance with the increase in weight, students are getting taller by an average of two to three centimeters compared to 10 years ago.
Health checks have also been conducted on the students and seven out of every 10 students had at least one illness. About 66 percent of elementary school students and 82 percent of middle school students were suffering from some type of infection. In the case of high school students, nearly 87 percent of them suffered health problems.
Tooth decay was the most prevalent malady among the students with 43.4 percent of the total, followed by eyesight problems, otolaryngology disease and skin troubles. Girls had more illnesses than boys.
While oral and eyesight problems have decreased by 4.08 percent and 4.37 percent, respectively, otolaryngology and skin diseases have increased more than two-fold.