Anti-obesity drugs have quickly become popular for aesthetic weight loss in South Korea. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
SEOUL (The Korea Herald/ANN): A wave of demand for weight-loss medication is sweeping South Korea, a country that remains one of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) leanest, as rising body-image pressure and easy access to drugs fuel misuse, a concern for the health authorities.
At the same time, a new generation of oral GLP-1 medications is expected to enter the South Korean market as early as 2026, setting the stage for further growth.
Eli Lilly’s oral GLP-1 agonist orforglipron may launch in Korea in 2026 once it receives approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, according to media reports on Dec 7. Also under review is Novo Nordisk’s 25-milligram oral semaglutide.
South Korean drugmaker Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s GLP-1 therapy efpeglenatide is expected to be released in the second half of 2026, expanding treatment options for obesity and diabetes.
Obesity has become a growing global health challenge. The World Health Organization last week issued its first guidelines recommending GLP-1 therapies for treating obesity as a chronic, relapsing disease.
While South Korea has one of the lowest obesity rates in the OECD under the WHO standard – 5.7 per cent – the domestic health authorities warn that obesity is still a growing issue.
South Korea uses a stricter BMI threshold of 25 or above for defining obesity, and under that measure, the share of adults considered obese has been rising steadily.
Misuse surges as diet drugs gain popularity
Despite their medical purpose, anti-obesity drugs have quickly become popular for aesthetic weight loss.
Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, introduced in Korea in October in 2024, has already shown signs of widespread misuse.
According to the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, the drug was illegally prescribed to 69 children under the age of 12 and 194 pregnant women as of August. Both groups are strictly prohibited from using the medication.
The data also revealed large numbers of prescriptions written by specialists who do not treat obesity, including psychiatrists, urologists, ophthalmologists and dentists.
The authorities additionally uncovered 111 cases of illegal advertising in the first half of this year, many promoting access to the drug without proper medical oversight.
Under South Korea’s BMI 25 standard, 41.4 per cent of men fall into the obese category, nearly double the 23 per cent of women.
Yet women accounted for 71.5 per cent of all prescriptions for Wegovy and another popular injectable weight-loss drug Saxenda issued between 2020 and June 2025.
There are no official figures on how many people are using the drugs without medical need, but anecdotal evidence indicates the number is significant.
Social media intensifies pressure
Experts say South Korea’s pursuit of thinness has intensified in the age of social media.
In July, the state-run Korea Health Promotion Institute issued a public advisory against what it called “distorted body ideals” spreading online. The warning highlighted the trend known as the “bony arm”, where arms thin enough for bone outlines to show are promoted as desirable.
The institute said this normalisation of extremely thin celebrity bodies contributed to a 39 per cent increase in eating-disorder patients between 2020 and 2023.
“Trends like the ‘bony arm’ pose a direct threat to public health, especially for adolescents and women,” said institute chief Kim Heon-joo.
A study by professors at Changwon National University and Soongsil University found that young women exposed to pro-anorexia content describe a progression from longing for thinness, to achieving it and maintaining it, often with reinforcement from online communities.
International research also points to the influence of social media algorithms. Facebook’s internal studies, as reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2021, found that Instagram worsened body-image issues among teenage girls, with some mental health impacts unique to the platform.
Many experts say such ecosystems, filled with dieting vlogs, body transformation videos and “bone skinny” tutorials, are shaping unrealistic norms of what a desirable body looks like and driving non-obese individuals toward prescription drugs.
Authorities call for caution as obesity slowly rises
Even with South Korea’s low WHO-measured obesity rate, domestic figures show a steady rise in overweight and obesity under local standards.
South Korea’s 2024 obesity rate reached 34.4 per cent under the BMI 25 threshold, up from 26.3 per cent in 2015. More than half of men in their 30s and 40s are now classified as obese.
However, public understanding of obesity remains limited. In a survey conducted by the Korean Society for the Study of Obesity, only 38 per cent of non-medical respondents viewed obesity as a disease, compared with 90 per cent of doctors. Many believed obesity could be overcome through willpower alone.
The authorities warn that while an increasing number of medically obese patients justifies greater access to treatment, casual or cosmetic use of GLP-1 drugs carries unnecessary risks.
In October, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced plans to designate Wegovy, Saxenda and other anti-obesity drugs as medications at risk of misuse or abuse.
“People with normal BMI who take these medications solely for slimming purposes face heightened risks such as anemia, hair loss and muscle loss,” said family medicine professor Kang Jae-hun, at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital. -- THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
