Today is NO Diet Day

`May 6 is NO Diet Day.` Women`s organizations are set to launch `Love Your Body` campaign to celebrate the world`s No Diet Day. The campaign aims at warning young women about the danger of getting obsessed with good looks.

The organizers of the campaign say that women often grow complaint about their bodies, lose confidence in themselves and fall ill psychologically by wanting too much to be thin.

The No Diet Day first started in 1992 when British activist Mary Evans raised the issue on women`s obsession with looks, mourning many deaths resulted from diets. Since then May 6 has been marked as the world`s No Diet Day, but this is the first time that the country joins the worldwide campaign.

The Korea Women Link already held a debate on prevalence of the so-called lookism on April 30 and is now set to host a variety of events in Myung-dong, Seoul in the afternoon of May 6 including a performance show titled `Time to Listen to Your Body.` and declaration of `ten action plans to love your body.`

According to KWL, a recent survey to 1,044 high school girls and female college students found that 83.5% of respondents were dissatisfied with their bodies even they weighed normally. 58.2% of those found normal answered that they have been on a diet before, and 4 to 5% said that they have experienced depression or nausea, symptoms of eating disorder.

Seung-Jin Kim sarafina@donga.com