Lookism hurts: appearance discrimination and self-

rated health in South Korea

Written by: Hyemin Lee, Inseo Son, Jaehong Yoon, & Seung-Sup Kim

https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-017-0678-8

Physical Discrimination

An excessive concern about physical appearance has emerged as a significant social

issue in South Korea. One’s health in South Korea somewhat depends on their physical
appearance, those people whose physical appearance are socially preferred has a better health
compared to those people whose appearance are not the type of the society, may it be physical
or mental health. The people who are considered attractive in South Korea has a massive
advantage to almost everything, education, marriage markets, and labor are some of the
examples, and they achieve greater occupational success in the labor market. The concern and
discrimination about the physical appearance in South Korea has become so serious that people
tend to attempt suicide because of the discrimination that they are getting from the society.

Everyone in South Korea can experience physical discrimination, and there are no
exceptions, even immigrants suffer physical discrimination in South Korea. Both male and
female in South Korea suffers physical discrimination, but those people who undergone
cosmetic surgeries suffers more of this discrimination than those who did not. South Korean
people became so obsessed about making their physical appearance be praised and liked by
the community that they became the third highest country with people who undergone
cosmetic surgeries, but if the ratio would be based on population, South Korea would be the
highest in the world. Physical attractiveness was socially constructed and associated with
quality of social experiences, and it manage to become a huge factor about their health,
physically attractive people can socialize better and find work easier than those who are not
attractive.

Race, gender, and sexual discrimination are also present in South Korea, but being
discriminated because of how they look like is the biggest part of all the discriminations that
occurs in that country. Even immigrants are not safe, a study measured three types of
discrimination that they are experiencing in the country, and it is discrimination due to
immigrant status, physical appearance, and workplace related. But some immigrants are not
like any other Koreans who are obsessed about their appearance, they do not care about their
looks and just deals with the discrimination that they are getting every day. The physical
discrimination are a prejudice and unfair treatment that is based on one’s physical
attractiveness.

Having a cosmetic surgery to be liked by the society in South Korea would not vanish
soon, but protection against all the discriminations mentioned are increasing and they are
moving in the right direction. What makes it hard for the South Koreans to lessen the
discrimination is the lack of understanding and ignorance, but racial discrimination has a long
way to go because it does not get much attention from the public because the ethnic minority
population is so small. Even being discriminated because of their religion is present in South
Korea, an example is the Muslims that lives in the country, there are more than 100,000
Muslims there but only a few Koreans know even knows that there are so many Muslims in
their country. Lack of understanding and ignorance from the people of South Korea has a bigger
percent than those who has appreciation and respect for everyone, and this makes it more
challenging to end all the discriminations happening in South Korea today.

Reaction:
Physical discrimination should not come to a point where people are losing their lives
just because they are not liked by the society, but that is what happens in Korea nowadays.
Accepting who they really are will definitely make their country a better and safer place to live
in, not having the looks preferred by the society does not makes them less of how great of a
person they are, they should not worry about it so much because it affects massive amounts of
people all over South Korea, not only their looks, but their health too. Physical discrimination
should not happen and tolerated anywhere in the world because no person on this planet
deserves it, everyone should learn acceptance and how to appreciate even the smallest things,
and this will surely have a massive impact for everyone, and making not only in South Korea,
but the whole world a better place to live in especially for the future generations.