A plus-­size challenge to S Korea’s beauty ‘norm’ | World News - Hindustan Times
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A plus-­size challenge to S Korea’s beauty ‘norm’

ByAFP
Aug 31, 2016 07:21 AM IST

SEOUL: In a country with beauty ideals that pre-makeover Barbie would struggle to meet, South Korean plus-size model Vivian Geeyang Kim is facing down online trolls in her campaign to persuade curvy women they have nothing to be ashamed of.

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Kim has modelled for US firms, but at 165-cm tall and weighing 70 kg, she was described as “too skinny” for some full-figure fashion show work in America.

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But in her looks-obsessed homeland, she is constantly mocked and ridiculed on social networks as “flat-out fat” or “disgusting.”

“In South Korea, the ideal weight for women is 50 kilogrammes, and many women who weigh more than that think they are fat,” the 30-year-old said. “That is a ridiculous, impossible standard that cripples many South Korean women’s self-esteem. And that has to change,” she told AFP.

Kim, who is a US size 10, runs an online clothing shop and publishes a fashion magazine specifically for plus-size women in South Korea -- a first in a country where beauty is defined by rail-thin teenage K-pop stars and TV actresses whose diets are strictly controlled by their management. The pressure to conform is such that many turn to the country’s $4.6-billion plastic surgery industry, which offers everything from a nose-job to radical double-jaw surgery.

“People hate it when a ‘fat girl’ like me parades her body without looking ashamed ... they say I should not be seen in public or on the media,” Kim said.

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