In Korean, “Geongangmi” means “healthy beauty”.
This new buzz term is used to describe an athletic lifestyle that goes hand in hand with a muscular and tanned body.
A physical ideal in total rupture with the canons of feminine beauty anchored in mentalities in South Korea, where the cult of white skin and thinness dominates.
Market research firm Euromonitor confirms that the “Geongangmi” phenomenon has accelerated among Gen Z and Y over the past three years.
On the other hand, the number of 20-somethings going to gyms has more than doubled in the four years to 2020, according to official national census data.
The apology of athletics
“For many clients, the priorities have shifted from losing weight to improving their quality of life,” says Koo Hyun-kyung, fitness trainer at Timber, a women-only gym specializing in strength training and fitness. weightlifting, as she recounts in an interview with
The Guardian
newspaper .
Over the last three to four years, the specialist has seen a significant increase in the number of clients wishing to become "stronger": "You can't have a pale, skinny body and achieve fitness, so people tend to modify their beauty standards to align with their goals,” she adds.
Read alsoJapanese colleges ban ponytails, deemed too “exciting”
The sculpted silhouettes are also adorned with a golden tan, the opposite of the porcelain complexion so coveted in Asia.
"If white skin was popular in the past, now there are many people who want dark skin, because nowadays many celebrities sport brown tans as well," says Yoo Wonhee, a 26-year-old Korean woman. who took up sports to reshape her body.
Indeed, Korean youth aspire to look like the new "geongangmi" idols, such as pop star Hyolyn or actress and boxer Lee Si-young, who participate in the popularity of this new canon of beauty.
On social media, photos and videos of these national starlets training in the gym rack up thousands of “likes”.
New injunctions?
Because the "geongangmi" look is above all made to be seen... and especially on social networks.
A certain “body profile challenge”, which consists of having your photo taken from your best angle in order to flatter your figure, has been a great success in the country for the past two years.
So much so that young Koreans book expensive professional photoshoots months in advance, aiming to be trimmed as they wish under the lens.
These shots exposing their muscular transformation have thus become a symbol of success.
To be sure, being pale and thin remains the predominant beauty ideal in South Korea, but some critics argue that the “geongangmi” look has simply replaced old standards of beauty with new, equally stifling ideals.
“I used to starve.
Now I have to starve and exercise,” one blogger wrote about it, according to
The Guardian
article .
Does one injunction drive out another?
The makeup trends of 2022
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow68 photos
See the slideshow68 photos
