South Korea court convicts man for dodging military draft by gaining weight 

A court in South Korea has sentenced a young man to a suspended prison term for deliberately putting on excessive weight to dodge mandatory military service.

The Seoul Eastern District Court said on Tuesday that the unnamed man has been sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for two years, for violating the Military Service Act.

An acquaintance of the man, who had helped him devise a regimen to put on more than 20kg (44 pounds), received a six-month prison term, suspended for one year, for aiding and abetting the offence.

Local media reported the men were friends, both aged 26, but the court did not identify them by name.

All able-bodied men are legally bound to serve in the military for 18-21 months in South Korea, where tensions have escalated with its neighbour to the north and the two countries remain technically at war.

Individuals with health issues can carry out their mandatory service in the form of community service at non-military facilities, including at welfare centres. Some may be exempted if found eligible.

According to the court, a physical exam in 2017 had found the man to weigh 83kg (183 pounds) at 169cm (5 feet 6 inches), meaning he would qualify as an active-duty soldier.

But he doubled his daily food intake, consumed high-calorie foods, quit his part-time job as a parcel delivery worker, and drank large amounts of water right before tests to deliberately increase his weight, the court said.

In three physical exams from 2022 to 2023, the man weighed 102-105kg (225-231 pounds), which made him fit for social service.

The court added that the man had promised to fulfil his military duty faithfully and that both the defendants and prosecutors did not appeal the ruling.

Exemptions from military service to dodging conscription are a sensitive domestic issue in the face of an increasingly belligerent North Korea, and as South Korea rethinks its position on the war in Ukraine.

Gaining or losing weight, or manoeuvring on other health issues, have become commonplace methods to evade mandatory military service. K-pop stars in BTS went on hiatus in 2022 to perform military service.

The Military Manpower Administration maintains a public list of evaders, displaying their names, ages, registered addresses, and reasons for avoidance.

In 2023, 355 people evaded mandatory military service illegally, the highest since the public listing began in 2015.