Korean society & Body image
- words of the natives
- 2017년 8월 10일
- 9분 분량
I have read a lot of question going around between us foreigners living in Korea regarding Korean women eating habits, possibly eating disorders, about body image in Korea etc. I plan to challenge few different Korean female on that topic and see what we get from the words of the natives. Today I've met with a Korean woman, that personally means a lot to me. Let's call her J. J is in her early 30s and she is very interested in matters of various kinds of discrimination and inequality. Living in Korea, though, doesn't make it easy for her to be as opened about it as she'd probably like to.
So we are eager to know what is the ideal body image in Korea? Oh, I can make this very clear. A woman with an ideal body is very skinny. In past decade Korean people started to fancy the word "curvy", but what it describes here is diametrically different from what it describes in western countries. Skinny legs, skinny arms, big breasts, and wide pelvis. The pressure on Korean women is enormous, and it's right out there. Nobody holds back when commenting on your body. How many percents of Korean women you'd say takes that pressure personally and actively tries to live up to these expectations? This is of course just my personal guess, but I believe more than 50 % do act. And if you ask how many of them feel like they should have one, I guess that'd take it over 70%. To what extent does the body here affects one's social life? For women, her body basically stands for her personality. If the woman has a body that most people view close to ideal, they automatically think of her as of a hard-working, self-confident woman with a sense of beauty and femininity. There are stereotypes about men's body as well, they are just on the other side of the scale. If a man has a round belly, people understand that he is the laid back easy going guy, kind of a person who brings comfort with him. If the round belly belongs to a woman, she's be mostly looked at as lazy person that doesn't care enough about her health, hygiene... all together, that doesn't take care of herself. I'm not saying, that there isn't any pressure on men to get a nice body, it just isn't as strong and standardized. And how about professional life? Work life? When it comes to work life, I still believe the body doesn't affect it that much. I personally believe it doesn't. For now. Unless the woman works face to face with customers, then the discrimination of all women outside of the ideal body range would definitely take place. I think you can tell from the way our stewardess or announcers look like. As for the girls interested in becoming a stewardess, they get the weight/height papers, with information on each airline's demands, and then they choose where they are able to interview for.
For example, Asiana airlines 162 cm of height under 47 kilograms, or...JTBC TV requires 160cm of height and under 49 kilograms of weight and such. The most disturbing fact is, that these conditions are considered more important than their professional skills. The announcer should be knowledgeable, curious, must have outstanding speaking and debating skill and should have a sense of objectivity, but here the looks come first and the majority of the announcers already go to the TV believing that they are just medium for messages likable to the audience, no more no less.
Hearing this just made me realize, that people who strive for becoming an announcer in Korea, must be pretty much...perfect. Sure, they must be skinny, have good speaking skills, of course, they must prove they've had outstanding grades at school... And of course, they must be pretty. Well...if they are not it's just a matter of fixing that if you know what I mean. That'd be probably the easiest part about it. The toughest one would probably really be the diet. I've been part of a study group at the university and we had a girl who never ate anything else but pills. She said those pills were protein and fat supplements that contain zero carbs. She lived only on those pills and water. We asked her about it and she said she is preparing to become a stewardess. (we laugh) Did she succeed? I don't know, I've never got to talk to her again once the group project was over.
Where do you think this extreme orientation on looks comes from? I think in Korea it is rooted in the old Kiseang tradition (international readers will be more familiar with the Japanese term Geisha). They were always looked down on as girls that are good for nothing else but serving tea and look beautiful. They were always on a social lever lower than anybody present in the room.
Has the ideal body image changed since you were a little girl? It hasn't changed for better, that's for sure. If it has changed, it just made things even more stressful for the girls. When I was a school girl, all you had to do was stay skinny. Now there is the demand for the already mentioned curves. To be completely fair, though, the stress has grown for the male population as well. What do you think sets the trends in Korea and what are some recent trends? I think it's the TV. Celebrities. Actors, singers and so on. A few years ago there was this trend that is called "Honey thighs". Long thighs with a nice layer of long lean muscles on it. It preached to get long lean muscles on your thighs, but the calves must stay skinny, no matter what. More recently there was an "apple hips" trend. In the gym my colleagues always spoke about apple jam turned to apple hips. That's it. But I remember even older trend than that and the honey thighs, that has been on in the late 2000s. It was called "bagel". It stands for "baby face" + "glamorous body". These days I'd say the trend is a mix of all of these. Young face, big breast, wide pelvis extended by long legs with just enough muscles exclusively in the thighs area. Yes, the stress is growing. Don't you think that the shift from skinny to lean-muscular-skinny is a step towards Korean women getting more healthy, though? Well yeah, in a sense yes. It's just that they want you to miraculously gain muscles only from your belly button down to your knees, and only to the extent where your legs look still lady-like. How should one work on thighs and keep skinny calves at the same time?! With our average height of 5ft (155cm), how are we supposed to make our thighs look muscular and long at the same time? As a personal trainer and westerner myself, I know that even western female population has to work really hard on getting some muscles on. Hormonally we might have a little advantage, though. But hey, we work out hard, too. I know. Fitness for Korean women became a trend only during the past decade, but many do work hard on getting that body, too.
Since what age do Korean girls tend to feel the pressure? And what age ladies tend to settle with what they've got? I think it has to do with the puberty. When I was young it was somewhere between 10~13 years of age. The girls would want to use makeup, become more concerned about how they look. These days kids seem to come to that state much faster, though. And as for the age when Korean women stop to feel the pressure... I think it's on average in their mid 50s. These days you get to see a lot of ladies in their early 50s lifting weights in the gym or doing yoga every day. Yeah. The western eating disorders clinics announced that since a few years ago they are getting patients as young as 6~7 years of age with serious eating habit problems rooted in fear of gaining weight. And since we are on it, what do you know about existing eating disorders? Since we are in Korea, let me first even ask if you even acknowledge the existence of such. I have never thought about this. A lot of people these days count calories. And if they go overboard, some will try to make up for it by eating next to nothing or nothing at all the next day. But I don't think that's what an eating disorder means. I think it becomes a disorder when it becomes physical as well as mental. Eating a lot and then sticking a finger down your throat to make yourself vomit or stopping eating altogether and get so thin it's life threatening. Right. These would be the two first known types, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa. There has been a lot of subgroups to those and there are still new added to the list. Have you heard about any others? Never. I guess there is a general lack of information and education about this topic in Korea. I don't even know about anybody who'd suffer from those. I myself, though, have had a little phase where I made myself vomit after eating food. I did it only a few times and that'd be the first time I started realizing eating disorders are real. I felt drained of all energy and depressed. I guess you've caught it in time. Once you really get in, it's almost impossible to help yourself out of it. I got busy. I started to make music and got busy performing. I suddenly didn't have time to be depressed and think about calories. In Korea, eating disorders, as well as many other addictions or mental diseases, are being pretty much overlooked. Whereas we got treatments and clinics dealing with eating disorders patients for around half a century, the first professional clinic in here was opened only in the late 2000s. Even though Korean specialists warn, that statistically, each 4th Korean women suffers from severe eating disorders habits, people just don't know very much about it. Do you think Korean needs to get more open and educated about eating disorders? Absolutely. Many women here eat what they want and then make up for it by skipping meals, I think. It's so common it's never been questioned as a dangerous eating habit and we don't get to think about it that way either because we don't know.
Do you know about any celebrity or artist that gets the respect despite being overweight or even obese? There are many! Especially singers, I think. They get respect for their voice and for their skills. I think I've never seen one becoming a national start and appearing regularly on the TV, though. Most people respect their talents, but unless they become more "eye-appealing" they always seem to hit the glass ceiling. Oh, and comedians. If a women are severely overweight and want to get to the TV, it seems like becoming a comedian is the only way how to get there. If one wants to become the real star here, they must lose the weight in order to become more generally likable.
What are some popular diest in Korea? I think it's pretty much the same everywhere. These days there are many low carb diets. High-fat diets. About seven years ago we had "Denmark diet" trend, where you had to eat exactly what it said on Monday to Sunday. From what I remember it was something like... black coffee one cup, one grapefruit, one slice of toasted bread and one unseasoned steak per day. I remember I've done that for about 10 days and I've lost around 4-5 kilograms. So it was highly successful, but I bet many others have gained the weight back as soon as they started eating normally again. I did gain 6 kilograms, so do the math. (we laugh) The celebrity diets are popular here as well. Some actor loses weight, shares how and it becomes a huge trend to follow. What I was really curious about, and I bet a lot of my readers were too. Wherever I go I see Korean women eating cakes, bread, sweet latte...but they are all skinny! What is that about?? Well, don't ask me! Even my doctors point out that I have a body and bones of a westerner. I am curious about what's behind that too. Do you have any friends that are this way? I do. I think I have come across two different types in my circles. Either they eat a lot but don't eat bread, snacks, cakes and these things. Which might be why they maintain their skinny frame. Or there are friends who do eat bread and cakes but when you pay attention, you realize they get two or three bites and leave the rest. Then it's pretty common to eat like crazy when you are out with friends and then when you are alone, just not eat at all for few days. I believe that there are no women in the whole world who'd literally eat everything unlimited and stayed skinny. Girls who claim that probably have some secrets and if there are some rare cases of such a body type, then I bet it must be because of some biological disposition or problem. The biggest difference I see between Korea and west is, that in the west the perfect body image is directly being forced only on celebrities or public figures whereas in Korea it's being openly applied on all women regardless their social or professional background. Am I right? You're right.
So what do you think? Did you have it right, too?
I still have to laugh at the two common stereotypes we ladies have about each other. We believe Asian girls have it easier to stay skinny and they believe it's way easier for us to get fitness figure. In conclusion, we all have a work to do if we want to become a bikini model. Eat less, work out hard. No matter where you come from. One undeniable fact is though, that for Korean girls the pressure is much stronger and almost omnipresent.
I am a personal trainer and I hope to seed as much of the body love as I can while practicing here. Cross your fingers!
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