South Korea has had its fill of live stream binge-eating craze
SOUTH KOREA is to take action against a binge-eating craze on social media in an attempt to curb rising obesity rates.
Consuming large amounts of junk food while live streaming to an online audience has become so popular that it has spawned a lucrative industry known as “Mukbang”. Consisting of people filming themselves gorging on mountains of food, it has drawn hundreds of thousands of followers in South Korea and gone viral globally.
Among the most popular of the glutinous Mukbang Youtubers is a British former banker turned personal trainer who goes under the name Beard Meats Good and can devour more than 10,000 calories per show. Others like Minsu Huh, known on Youtube as Yasikee, have made binge-eating a full-time career. He has attracted more than 100,000 subscribers with exploits that include eating 22 bags of ramen noodles in one go. He claimed binge-eating shows had taken off because of the loneliness caused by family breakdown. “Korean society has a tradition of eating together, but this culture is now slowly dying away due to the increase in one-person households,” he said.
“Now, people are starting to have the desire to eat with someone, and internet broadcasts solve this problem.”
South Korean politicians plan to introduce rules to control Mukbang as part of an anti-obesity programme. The government has been alarmed that the rate of obesity in South Korea has risen from 26 per cent in 1998 to 35 per cent in 2016. Experts fear South Korea’s obesity rate will have doubled by 2030.
Yet Youtubers like Yasikee have denounced the government for planning “dictatorial” measures that “destroy people’s happiness.”
Kim Jungbum, 16, a Youtuber with more than 320,000 subscribers, said the rules would make little difference. “My friends tell me that they watch my show because they can vicariously eat the food through me and satisfy their needs when they are on a diet,” he said.
Others applauded the move. One person wrote on Twitter: “The media can easily influence teenagers.”