Op-Ed: SISTAR's Dasom's Diet Confession Made Me Upset

SISTAR's Dasom appeared on KBS 2TV's "1 Versus 100" where she said the following quote:

“Since I’m a member of a girl group, I have to diet. I watch what I eat and exercise, especially weight lifting and aerobics. No one dislikes eating. People live in order to eat, and eat in order to live,” said the singer.

“Eating good food is one of life’s pleasures so I can’t just starve myself,” said Dasom. “I diet by eating one meal a day, at around 4 pm.”

“Once I started the drama, I could monitor myself everyday through the screen, which helps me to adjust my diet. I’ve been losing weight naturally since I started filming, but if I don’t eat, I really don’t have the energy to shoot. Plus, if I don’t eat, the rest of the drama staff doesn’t eat, so I’ve been eating together with them,” confessed Dasom.

As a woman who has dealt with body and eating issues all my life, I am troubled by these words. What Dasom does behind closed doors to maintain her figure is her choice and her prerogative. I am no one to judge her for who she is, what she represents, and how she eats to stay thin, but as a fan or even just as a woman, how does this affect me?

She is well aware that she's a public figure, and as a public figure she must know that her words have power. Stating troubling confessions like "eating one meal a day," or "monitoring her figure through the screen which helps to adjust her diet," and "eating to have energy," almost sounds like a cry of help. It saddens me as a woman to read these kinds of interviews, solely because the pressure of the entertainment business is ruthless-no one is spared. As a society, we have been fed that skinny is pretty, skinny is attractive, and skinny is the only way to go. If you look at SISTAR's Dasom, she's beautiful- she's long, lean and gorgeous. Her figure is flawless and who wouldn't want to look like that? Women strive to be happy with their physical appearance and because of that yearning to be perfect, to look like celebrities, we suffer from an immense amount of emotional, physical, and mental consequences. The question is: when is enough, enough?

As a fan and a consumer, public figures like Dasom should be more self-aware of the interviews they give. I appreciate honesty and truth but only if it is to move mountains and make change. If Dasom said this with confidence, then I'm saddened by how these words have affected female fans and their body images. It isn't healthy to eat one meal a day, it isn't healthy to not eat! Confessing to the world that she eats one meal a day is nothing to be proud about and I hope this doesn't inspire women to change their diets and follow in the steps of this singer's dietary choice. I only hope in the future that agencies in Korea will take charge of ensuring that discouraging interviews like this are filtered. No one in this world needs another reason to become unealthy.

As women, we have to fight for health and happiness! We should never encourage unhealthy dieting!

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Dasom
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