[geomark]

Asia is a big place. In some densely populated areas in Asia most people live in bubbles, moving from air conditioned condos to taxis/subways to offices and then malls. They spend as little time as possible in the open due to pollution, weather and a cultural aversion to tanning. As a result, vitamin D deficiency is very common.

Some examples for Thailand are included in this paper[1]. One study said this: "Soontrapa et al. [15] evaluated vitamin D status in a younger group of premenopausal women found the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency to be 77.8%, which was as high as the rate found in elderly Thai women living in nursing homes."

There is lots of sun in Thailand, but people avoid it as much as possible, staying indoors and applying lots of sunscreen if they must go out.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5685050/

[aksss]

Is this where I say the obligatory reminder: "'Asia' is neither a country nor a culture."? ;)