K-pop Star Joy Raises Health Concerns Over Thin Appearance

K-pop star Park ‘Joy’ Soo-young has sparked concern over her shrinking frame.

The 29-year-old, who is a member of the girl group Red Velvet, recently shocked fans after appearing much slimmer than usual in a series of jaw-dropping images.

‘A healthy body doesn’t mean a slim body. Being too thin isn’t a good thing,’ commented one fan.

‘She’s getting so thin,’ wrote another, while a third commented, ‘Oh my god, she’s lost so much weight.’

A fourth wrote, ‘She’s losing so much weight that it’s the first time I’ve seen her so thin.’

Another commented, ‘Joy, you are beautiful. You don’t need to risk your health to please others. Your curves are lovely and delicate. Your body is perfect just the way it is. You don’t need to impress anyone.’ 

The performer was originally famous for her healthy physique and full cheeks, which made her stand out among a sea of stick-thin K-pop stars. 

During an appearance on the South Korean variety show I Live Alone earlier this year, Joy complained about her ’round’ face and confessed that she was jealous of skinny people.

‘I really envy those with slim body types. If I could be reborn, I would want to be born with a slim body type,’ she admitted.

‘If the face is round, the body also tends to be round… I have been round since I was young.’  

Daily Mail has contacted Joy’s agency SM Entertainment for comment and has not heard back.  

The K-pop industry brings in billions of dollars for the country’s economy each year, so it’s no surprise that nothing less than complete and utter perfection is expected from the industry’s young stars. 

According to the investigative book titled K-pop: Idols in Wonderland, as many as eight out of 10 female K-pop trainees stop menstruating due to extremely restrictive diets, reports the Korea Times.

Other factors, such as stress and lack of sleep, are also likely to blame. 

In 2023, K-pop star Hyein, who is a member of the girl group NewJeans, revealed the paltry meal she was surviving on during a music video shoot.

In a short clip shared online, the teenager, who was fourteen at the time, was seen picking at some sliced avocado, two-halves of a single cherry tomato, and some yellow rice.

Meanwhile Momo, who is a member of the chart-topping K-pop group TWICE, once confessed to starving herself so severely that she feared for her own life.

The Japanese performer, now 29, said that she was told to lose 7kg (15lbs) in a week ahead of TWICE’s official debut in 2015.

If she failed to do so, she wouldn’t make it into the group.

She ended up eating nothing more than a cube of ice and exercised nonstop for a week to hit her target weight.

‘I didn’t eat anything for the whole week and went to the gym all the time. I spent all my time so there was no water in my body,’ she revealed on the program Jihyo Candy Nights. 

‘And when I laid down on the bed and tried to sleep, I was scared that I wouldn’t wake up again, so I suddenly started crying,’ she continued.

‘I ate one cube of ice, but I thought that I might get fat with even that. That’s what I did, but I didn’t lose 7kg by the D-day, so they gave me about three more days.’

Momo was able to make it into TWICE, who have since become one of the best-selling girl groups in music history. 

In video that shocked the world, Hyuna, 33, was performing her hit Bubble Pop at the Waterbomb Festival in Macau when she became woozy while trying to push through the song’s signature choreography. 

In horrifying footage, she can be seen sluggishly gyrating her hips and turning around before crashing to the ground.

Her backup dancers and a security guard then rush to her aid and carry the unconscious hitmaker off stage.

When Hyuna collapsed, she had been on an extreme diet which saw her shed 10kg (22lbs) in just one month.

Just a week earlier, she shocked longtime fans after sharing a photo of her bruised and blistered feet standing on a scale, which revealed her weight to be 49kg (108lbs).

The singer, who is 5’5″, scolded herself for eating in the post’s caption and said that she still had ‘a long way to go’ on her weight loss journey.

Hyuna has been open about her many health woes, which have been caused by years of disordered eating.

The K-pop veteran, who was just 15 when she debuted on the music scene, previously confessed to eating just one piece of sushi a day so that she could keep her weight down to 40kg (88lbs).

‘Back then, I’d survive on a single piece of kimbap while pushing through all the scheduled activities. And that destroyed me. By 26, I was so unhealthy,’ she revealed on the program B-Season. 

She went into more details about her issues on the Korean talk show Point of Omniscient Interfere, where she admitted that the lack of food led to her developing a fainting condition called peripheral neuritis.

‘I used to eat very little. There were times when I would go a week without eating, and I even developed peripheral neuritis,’ she said, according to Allkpop.

‘Whenever my weight dropped too low, it would trigger it. I would faint after surviving on just one piece of kimbap. I fainted 12 times in a month.’