Former South Korean beauty queen Jeong Yeon Soon decided to quit pageant life and start lifting weights when she saw how toned Madonna looked. Now, she competes in body building competitions and has dedicated her life to changing insanely harsh South Korean beauty ideals [via BBC].
In a video for the BBC, Soon describes the typical South Korean attitude toward body image as "Women should be feminine and small." People are often confused by her lifestyle: "'She must be transgender,' people say."
In order to train for the many competitions she competes in, Soon eats boiled chicken, potatoes, vegetables without any salt or flavoring five times a day. She says it makes it hard to make friends or go on dates.
Soon knows what she's doing is important, though. South Koreans spend millions of dollars a year on plastic surgery (including whole-body liposuction) to look the way they think they should look. Soon is promoting a trend of Korean women wanting healthier, more fit bodies.
They're are starting to forgo procedures like "surgical removal of calf muscle in a bid to slim the legs." Dr. Suh Mah Koon says, "In Korea, healthy beauty is becoming more popular and is becoming more main-theme [sic]."
While body-building is not the ultimate goal for most of these women, Soon is happy to see that it's a little more crowded in the gym.
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