Positive expression of extremely thin body, such as bone arms, and concerns about inducing eating disorders

Jul 31, 2025

Positive expression of extremely thin body, such as bone arms, and concerns about inducing eating disorders
Image=Korea Health Promotion Development Institute



There have been warnings that positive expressions for skinny body types such as 'bone arms' and 'bone dry', which are popular around social network services (SNS), can lead to eating disorders.

On the 31st, the Korea Health Promotion Development Institute emphasized the need to raise awareness of health risk information, saying that distorted body images that present extremely thin body types as beauty standards such as 'bone arms' are spreading around SNS in the summer.

According to the institute, 'bone arm' is an expression that sees a very skinny arm with a prominent outline of the bone of the arm as an ideal body shape. It is analyzed that it is a distorted body expression that uses a state far out of normal weight as a standard of beauty.




In fact, a number of posts are spreading on SNS that present the skinny body of celebrities (idols, influencer) as ideal body types, and some medical institutions are promoting procedures such as lipolysis and liposuction using 'bone arms' and 'bone dry' as keywords.

Positive expression of extremely thin body, such as bone arms, and concerns about inducing eating disorders
Image=Korea Health Promotion Development Institute
The institute pointed out that this trend can lead to 'Pro-Ana' or eating disorders that encourage extreme weight loss, which can cause serious harm to mental health as well as physical health. 'Proana' is a combination of the English prefix'Pro-', which means yes, and the beginning of 'Anorexia', which means anorexia, which means to induce anorexia by itself or consider it an ideal state and sympathize with it. According to the National Health Insurance Service, the number of patients diagnosed with eating disorders increased by about 39% from 9,474 in 2020 to 13,129 in 2023.

Professor Moon Jong-yoon of the preventive medicine class at Gachon University said "Extremely low weight, which has recently become popular, can lead to physical diseases such as menstrual irregularities, osteoporosis, and diabetes. In addition, it can cause mental diseases such as eating disorders due to obsession with distorted body type standards, and in severe cases, it can lead to death, so special care is required"In particular, adolescents can be easily affected by distorted body type standards in peer groups and SNS, which can lead to serious health problems in the long run while trying to lose weight excessively."




Development Director Kim Heon-ju pointed out that distorted body images such as "'bone arms' threaten public health and are serious social problems that negatively affect adolescents and women in particular, so they should not be passed on to mere fads."

Meanwhile, the institute suggests ▲ eating at a fixed time every day, ▲ not doing anything else while eating, ▲ daily exercise, and ▲ comparing daily food intake and physical activity as a way to manage the right weight.






This article was translated by Naver AI translator.