Diet Obsession in Korea

"I don't think you diet as much as I do."

Dieting is a good, healthy discipline for your body, but only when it's really "healthy." Some people in Korea diet TOO MUCH. Nearly 9.5 billion medical narcotic pills, including "weight-loss" and "study-enhancing" drugs, have been prescribed in Korea over the past five years, often becoming teenagers' first gateway toward drug misuse.

A Seoul National University study found that 53% of high school girls cited K-pop idols as their inspiration for a diet. Comparative studies find Korean women invest more heavily in appearance as a core part of identity, judge their bodies more harshly, and report lower self-esteem than American women in the same studies. When worth gets fused to appearance like this, a "bad" day on the scale doesn't just feel disappointing; it feels like a verdict on your value as a person.

Many causes exist for this issue, but culture plays a huge role. Korea's compressed, hyper-visual, comparison-driven culture (job interviews, dating, social media) treats appearance as almost a credential. Weight becomes a stand-in for discipline and worth.

But no. This is not how it's supposed to be.

Action needs to be taken now; regulators moved to tighten controls on GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro, requiring prescriptions even where they were previously sold more freely, plus mandatory abuse-warning labels. Additionally, media literacy education in schools, destigmatizing mental-health and eating-disorder treatment so people seek help rather than hide it, and stricter pharmacy-level tracking of narcotic prescriptions to close the "doctor-shopping" loophole.