Breakfast habits change in South Korea as more young adults skip morning meals

SEOUL, October 05 (AJP) - Breakfast is falling out of favor in South Korea, especially among young adults, according to new government data showing a steady rise in people skipping their morning meal.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said Sunday in its 2024 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey released on October 5, 2025, that 35.3 percent of Koreans aged one and older did not eat breakfast regularly last year. That means more than one in three people are now going without breakfast.

The rate has been climbing every year for the past decade, up from 26.2 percent in 2015 to 35.3 percent in 2024, a rise of 9.1 percentage points.

Skipping breakfast is most common among people in their 20s. The survey found 62.1 percent of South Koreans in that age group skip breakfast, and among women, the figure rises to 67.5 percent — roughly two out of three. The rate drops with age: 46.8 percent in their 30s, 39.1 percent in their 40s, 35.5 percent in their teens, and 25.3 percent in their 50s. Only 4.9 percent of those aged 70 and older said they skip breakfast.

For comparison, U.S. data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that about 15.6 percent of American adults skipped breakfast between 2015 and 2018. Among children and teenagers aged 2 to 19, roughly 17 percent went without breakfast between 2017 and early 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Medical researchers have warned that skipping breakfast may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic problems. A study by Samsung Medical Center found that people who skipped breakfast had higher risks of heart and metabolic diseases than those who ate three regular meals a day.

The research also showed that breakfast skippers had higher levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting blood sugar, and blood pressure than people who did not skip meals.

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com