Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DaffyD73]

Something i have thought about for a while is the lack of obese Koreans as compared to western cultures. Now the obvious comes to mind about western food (fast food etc...) being unhealthy. And of course talk to a korean and they say thier food is the best ..... .

But is the lack of a huge % of obese koreans -( perhaps obese is the wrong word - more fat than thin may be better) due to healthy food or lack of nutritional food.
With Korea traditional foods - soups these were designed to feed many based on only a few ingredients ( few i think relates to volume not 1 or 2 things)

What are peoples thoughts?

[Vancouver]

lots of people eat that paacked poison called ramyeon. On top of that, there are probably trans fats in deep frying oil, cheap snacks that have no nutritional value, and, of course, booze.

[CeleryMan]

Portions my lad, portions. I guarantee you the Koreans as a whole have smaller stomachs than our Carnie Williams counterpart circa gastro. Obesity has more to dow ith quantity than quality

[Fresh Prince]

Sugar is another thing that is a lot less prominent. People don't normally order sodas, desserts, dressings, and other sugary items when they eat out. For a sweet treat, they eat dduk or something made from sweet red bean paste, not sugar.

[kingplaya4]

Koreans are getting chubby, particularly the hagwon students. I think westerners have forgotten what their own kind looked like in the 70's and 80's which I would say is thinner than today's Koreans. Of course we have a Korean teacher who is very small boned and is all of 5' and probably 80 pounds, but she's hardly the norm anymore for the younger generation.

To answer your original question though, although you do see Koreans getting taller and fatter due to dietary reasons, they are not reaching the extremes of westerners, at least not yet. We will have to see what happens when our current students have children to see if a minority of 300 pound Koreans are going to be appearing in the future. I would suspect the answer is no, because of genetic reasons.

[jkelly80]

Good subway system=lost of people walking. Hilly terrain could be a factor. Also, I don't think soda is as ubiquitous here.