In addition to education and appearance, height is becoming a new measure of Korean society’s personal competitiveness threshold. According to a recent report by the Korean economic news and Japan’s TBS television station, there has been a trend in South Korea in recent years to increase the height of the needle, a large number of parents take their children with no health problems to the so-called CHANGGAO clinic, where they receive growth hormone injections in the hope that their children will stand out in the competition for further education and employment in the future.
One in six children treated with growth hormone is taller than average for their age, the report said, citing a survey by the Korea Institute of Health and medical research. About 60 per cent of parents said their child was not suffering from Growth hormone deficiency and was being treated “Just to grow taller”. The survey also showed that South Korean parents spend an average of 200,000 won (1,000 won) a month extra to make their children grow taller, for the injection of growth hormone, the purchase of auxiliary drugs or traditional Korean medicine.
Reported that growth hormone was originally used to treat hormone deficiency caused by dwarfism. In South Korea, health insurance is subsidized if a child’s height falls below a certain percentage of the standard for same-sex, same-age children. However, the survey found that only 41% of injection cases met the criteria.
According to statistics, 2023 Korean growth hormone injection market supply has reached 480 billion won, an increase of 2.5 times compared with 2019. The number of children receiving treatment is also rising rapidly, with 37,0002023 claiming health insurance, seven to eight times the number a decade ago. Among them, Seoul, south of the Yangtze River, the grass and other areas of the concentration of educational resources clinics are the most concentrated.
South Korea’s medical community sounded the alarm about this trend. According to the Korean Ministry of Food and drug safety, more than 6,300 reports of growth hormone injection-related adverse events have been 2023 since 2014, including pain at the injection site and endocrine disorders, individual deaths and cancer cases have even been reported.
Some experts say that from education to appearance to height, South Korean society’s obsession with“Quantifiable conditions” is expanding. Experts believe that height can be an advantage, but should not become a source of anxiety, should be established as soon as possible scientific and rational understanding, to avoid the blind“Long-high investment” into the national psychological burden.