[mahyarm]

There are plenty of people with Victoria Secret levels of body fat percentage walking around in Asia. They are the norm by far, probably over %80 of the under-35 population there are that skinny or even skinnier, and it's not because they are starving. It's not Adriana Lima's fault that we live in a food culture and industry that pushes toward obesity. You don't have to be anorexic or bulimic to be that skinny, but you'll have to be constantly telling no to almost everyone to trying to invite you to eat more and more crap.

A coworker in a previous job was asked by her Korean coworkers at LG to take pictures of how fat people got in new jersey because they, never, ever saw people get that fat in Korea.

[contingencies]

Let's be honest here, Korean food's not that exciting - it can be good, sure, but there's not a lot of variety. Plus, if you eat too much of their chilli and vinegar dominated kimchi, you wind up with stomach cancer. ("It is the leading cancer type in Korea, with 20.8% of malignant neoplasms.") That probably contributes to less fat people. Also, they're more image-centric than Hollywood! (I used to work above a Korean plastic surgery in Hollywood, it was a veritable production line)

[mahyarm]

I think the stomach cancer comes from the sodium actually, the Japanese have a similar problem. But you have to look at these causes of death on an even basis too. Cancer is a higher cause of death in Korea than heart disease, that's fairly impressive!

[contingencies]

IIRC most of Asia / developing countries without inactive lifestyles, overzealous meat consumption and fatty/sugary modern pretend-foods don't have issues with heart disease.