More than half of Korean men in 30s found to be overweight

A health survey has found that more than half of men in South Korea are considered obese. The rise in obesity is attributed to nutritional imbalance caused by people’s habit of eating high-calorie delivery food alone and preferring computer games to working out.

In 2018, 51.4 percent of South Korean men in their 30s was overweight, a 4.7 percent increase from a year earlier of 46.7 percent, according to “The 2018 National Health and Nutrition Survey” announced Sunday by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of South Korea.

Individuals are considered overweight when their body mass index (BMI), a value obtained when dividing the weight (kg) by the square of the height (m), is 25 or over. This is the first time since the survey began in 1998 that the obesity rate exceeded 50 percent. The National Health and Nutrition Survey is the largest health statistics survey annually conducted of around 10,000 people about some 500 themes including smoking, drinking and nutrition.

It seems South Korean men have not been taking good care of their health over the last two decades. According to the survey, 42.8 percent of men over 19 had a BMI figure exceeding 25 in 2018 while the figure was 25.1 percent in 1998. In the meantime, the BMI reading for women dropped from 26.2 percent to 25.5 percent.


Sung-Min Park min@donga.com