Within Seoul, the obesity rate in Geumcheon-gu is almost twice that of Seocho-gu. Expanding the view to 252 cities, counties, and districts nationwide, there is a 2.5-fold difference between the regions with the highest and lowest obesity rates.
According to data received by Kim Mi-ae, a member of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee, from the National Health Insurance Corporation, the obesity rate in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, was 8.55% last year, the highest among the 25 districts in Seoul.
The obesity rate refers to the proportion of people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30.0 or higher within the total population.
Geumcheon-gu’s obesity rate was nearly 1.8 times that of Seocho-gu (4.82%), the district with the lowest obesity rate in Seoul. Geumcheon-gu also had the highest proportion of overweight individuals, with a BMI between 25.0 and 30.0, at 32.36%. Gangnam-gu had the lowest proportion of overweight individuals in Seoul, at 26.02%.
The survey revealed that in Seoul, the obesity rate in 21 out of 25 districts was lower than the national average (7.83%) last year.
Nationally, Incheon Ongjin-gun had the highest obesity rate of 11.21%, which is 2.5 times that of Gwacheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, with the lowest rate at 4.47%.
The bottom 10 regions for obesity rates nationwide, besides Seocho-gu, mostly included high-income metropolitan areas like Gangnam-gu (4.89%), Songpa-gu (5.70%), Yongsan-gu (5.82%), and Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si (5.06%), as well as Suji-gu, Yongin-si (5.37%).
On the other hand, nearly half of the top 10 regions for obesity rates were located in Gangwon-do, including Yanggu-gun (10.33%), Hwacheon-gun (10.21%), Cheorwon-gun (10.13%), and Inje-gun (10.08%), with Dongducheon-si in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province (10.04%) making the list from the metropolitan area.
Healthy life expectancy, which refers to the length of time a person lives a healthy life physically and mentally, was 72.7 years for the top 20% income bracket in 2022, compared to 64.3 years for the bottom 20%, a difference of 8.4 years. This gap has widened from 8.1 years in 2018.
According to the Korean Society for the Study of Obesity, obesity is not just about gaining weight but can also cause various diseases.
Obesity-related diseases include type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, fatty liver, gallbladder disease, coronary artery disease, stroke, sleep apnea, gout, osteoarthritis, menstrual abnormalities, colon cancer, and breast cancer, and can also lead to mental diseases.
Assembly member Kim Mi-ae emphasized the need for a national-level response to the reality that obesity rates differ by more than twofold depending on where one lives. She stressed that the government should actively pursue tailored health management policies for different regions.