Famine turns to fat fight in North Korea

Two decades after North Korea suffered famine the country now has an app aimed at woman anxious to manage their weight.

North Korean artillery exrcise on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Little more than 20 years ago North Korea suffered a famine in which people dropped dead from hunger in the streets and hundreds of thousands died.

It is a sign of how things have changed that the country now has a smartphone app aimed at woman anxious to manage their weight.

The app, called Female Health Journal, is available to North Koreans on the internal “intranet” unconnected to the world wide web, to which more and more of them have access. Like Western health software, it can be used to track calorie consumption and calculate body mass index.

“BMI is an index necessary not just for maintaining a beautiful figure,” says an article on the North Korean government website DPRK Today.

“Multiple researchers have confirmed that an abnormal BMI … is related to disease and longevity. Hence, knowing one’s BMI and making efforts to ­restore and sustain a normal figure is a necessary requirement for managing one’s health.”

Research by the UN has shown that today’s North Korean children are suffering less from stunting caused by malnutrition, which used to be widespread. However, the growth of millions of children is still limited by a lack of adequate food.

According to North Korean government data, the national rate of stunted growth went down to 19 per cent in 2017 from 32 per cent during the previous survey eight years earlier.

Even in the capital, Pyongyang, the home of the ruling elite who are the last to suffer food shortages, one in 10 children is stunted.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation has said that 10 million people in North Korea — about 40 per cent of the total population — are in urgent need of food assistance, after ­record dry weather over the past year hindered crops.

There was only 56.3mm of rainfall across the country on ­average from January to March last year, the lowest on record since 1917.

North Korea claimed it had a bountiful harvest last year, yet observers have warned that drought and a lack of basic farming materials such as fertiliser make such claims far from the truth.

Satellite images suggested that cereal crops had been badly affected by drought and that food production was at its lowest level in five years.

“Dry weather persisted throughout the first half of 2019 in the Democratic People’s ­Republic of Korea after two consecutive years of dry conditions and irregular weather patterns,” said the UN, referring to North Korea by its official name. It lists North Korea as one of 44 countries in need of food ­assistance.

●North Korean state media said on Friday leader Kim Jong-un had supervised another round of artillery exercises, the latest in a series of exercises believed aimed at boosting its fighting capability.

The Korean Central News Agency said Kim guided an artillery firing competition between army units on Thursday.

The latest drills were the fourth since late February.

US-led diplomatic efforts aimed at getting the North to give up its nuclear weapons have been stalled for months. In December, Kim said he would unveil “a new strategic weapon” and expand his nuclear arsenal in the face of US sanctions.

THE TIMES