There was a popular saying a few years back: “If you enjoyed the food, it’s zero calories.” The concept of “penance coffee” also gained ground as an expression of regret after eating high-calorie foods by drinking low-calorie black coffee. And while those words might come across as jokes, there is a sense of automatic guilt that lurks in the shadows of the appetites of people living in the modern era of the over-nourished. The fact that these expressions were created by and subsequently spread through groups of women reflects the constant oppression women face around food and their bodies in society. The act of eating (because it leads to weight gain) is seen as ugly, and the shame and fear surrounding the risk ruining yourself (by becoming overweight) traps the majority of us.

In a world where making and maintaining a thin body is considered a sign of success, the easy way out is to encourage exercising to death and eating barely enough to stay alive. Reality shows centered around dieting that have aired to date have mostly aimed to change the people who appear on them as much as possible through extreme diets, cruel amounts of exercise and even liposuction surgery. But Kim Shin Young, the host and diet mentor of Diet on KBS, sets up three nos: no boring or painful exercise, no obsession with numbers on the scale and no weight loss through chicken breast alone, looking to the help of a variety of foods instead. The show follows six different women, each with their own personal set of circumstances: actress Ha Jaesuk loves to eat good food; TV host Ko Eun-a says she really likes drinking; Bae Yoon Jung gained weight from pregnancy and childrearing; YUJEONG from Brave Girls suffered a shutdown of her immune system under the pressures of dieting; YouTuber Iljueoteo (Kim Juyeon) has been documenting her experiences with a new diet every week; and PARKMOONCHI has suffered from cystitis due to excessive dieting.

Carboxytherapy, Saxenda, diets with traditional Korean medicine, blind starvation—having faced the trial and error of the same diet methods that so many Korean women have tried and been let down by, they have developed a lot of sympathy for one another. For those in the public eye, however, the stress is even more tolling. Ko Eun-a debuted in her first year of high school and was obsessed with her appearance, suffering from depression and panic attacks, and was bombarded with malicious comments on a personal live stream after she had gained weight following a hiatus. Ha Jaesuk lost weight for her role in the 2019 TV series Perfume and made a post online at the time where she wrote, “I read so much, learned to play music, studied dance, and exercised a lot, thinking it might all help with acting, but it’s sad to think that being thin is all that people think about when it comes to self-improvement.” But the response in the media didn’t change after her post, and she says with a bitter smile that she started to “think it was my nickname” when every article attached the words “lost 20 kg” to her name.

Diet is not entirely free from the conventions of handling women’s bodies in the media, of course. The role models who appear on the data screen when the cast of the show is exercising are girl group members with flat stomachs and slender waists. It also sends a mixed message when a show whose whole purpose is to promote a healthy and sustainable diet suggests that people can only wear sleeveless shirts with confidence once they lose fat. But when the women talk openly about bodily functions like their periods or constipation, or poke fun at one another for the dust building up on their exercise equipment, the program takes on all the fun of a proper variety show. This is a society where excessive measurements like 168 cm and 48 kg are suggested as the ideal body type for women. “The weight limit for paragliding is 100 kg,” Iljueoteo once said with a smile. “I’m 95 kg right now, so I could do it if I wanted to, but I want to lose a little weight first and not have to feel worried about it.” I hope the women on the show continue to open up about their personal experiences like this and find ways to connect with their own bodies amid all the trouble they go through.