Young girls dieting needlessly

By Lee Kyung-min

Girls in Korea are dieting needlessly due to social pressure to be slender, according to data released Monday.

Such pressure causes girls of normal weight to begin dieting from a young age, even while at elementary school, and it is feared side effects such as eating disorders could drastically increase.

According to a report released by the OECD on Monday, 14.1 percent of Korean girls aged between 5 and 17 were overweight or obese in 2013, almost half the rate of boys, who have an obesity rate of 26.4 percent.

Among the 33 OECD member nations surveyed, Korea had the widest gap between the two genders.

The OECD’s average overweight rate was 24.3 percent for boys and 22.1 percent for girls.

According to another study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on middle and high school students in 2014, 45.1 percent of girls said they had attempted to lose weight in the past 30 days, while only 23.1 percent of boys said so.

Experts say that such disparity stems from double standards about body image between the two genders: being overweight is not as much of a shame or stigma for boys as it is for girls.

“When boys are overweight, we compliment them saying their strong build is manly, while being heavy could never be a reason to compliment a girl,” said Kim Jong-gab, a director at Konkuk University’s Research Institute of Body Culture Studies.

He said that it is a problem that growing girls try to lose weight needlessly, adding now even elementary schoolgirls diet, whereas previously this was more typical only for middle and high school girls.

Kim said that adults should be careful not to judge children based on their looks. “Children bullied or criticized for being overweight tend to lose confidence and become ever more obsessive about how they are perceived by others, he added. “And then, they will develop the same harsh judgment against others.”

Skinny celebrities on television or on the Internet are another influence that forces children to become overly conscious about others’ opinions of appearance, he added.

“The media should play a role in encouraging children to eat healthily and exercise frequently, rather than having them obsess over how small a girl’s waist is.”