Instagram Video Promoting A “K-Pop Idol Diet” Sparks Criticism And Concern Regarding Eating Disorders

Appearances are a major part of the K-Pop industry, with the beauty standards for idols getting seemingly stricter and more unreasonable as time goes on. It’s not uncommon for an idol to be casted just for their looks alone, while people who are talented but not “conventionally” attractive might end up being ignored and not get to debut.

One of the major aspects of these rigid beauty standards regards a person’s figure. More often than not, especially when it comes to female idols, it seems like smaller is pretty much always better, at least when it comes to weight. Whether short or tall, it’s basically expected for girl group idols to be as slim and petite as possible, and that can easily lead into disordered eating.

While many idols have spoken out against diets and have asked their fans not to try and emulate their eating habits, there are still many fans who can’t help but want to look more like their favorite idols, and it can create unhealthy and even dangerous trends.

Recently, a person on Instagram by the username tienteaa posted a video of what she believes BLACKPINK‘s Jennie eats in a day, though there’s no source for where she got this information. In the video, she eats two small, low-calorie meals along with a green juice, and that was apparently all she had that day. The meals were an avocado salad and chicken porridge, both without salt.

It’s very clearly not enough to healthily sustain an adult, and she even mentioned still being hungry in the video.

 

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A post shared by Tien Tran (@tienteaa)

The video picked up a lot of traction, and people were quick to be critical of the Instagrammer seemingly promoting this type of diet. Most of the top comments on the post are from people bashing the “diet”, with many bringing up eating disorders.

The video got picked up on the kpopthoughts subreddit as well, and the comments there were similar and a little more in-depth about the issues with sharing “diets” such as the one in the post.

Please take care of your body, and don’t try to follow what you assume K-Pop idols are eating!