"I sobbed and vomited," MAMAMOO's Hwa Sa opens up about her painful struggles with anorexia

MAMAMOO's Hwa Sa candidly shared her struggles with anorexia during her trainee years.

On December 29, the SBS program 'Bodymentary - Confessions About Weight' featured heartfelt stories from prominent South Korean female stars, including Kim Wan Sun, Soyu, Jeon Hyo Sung, Han Seung Yeon, and Hwa Sa. The show explored their personal experiences of being judged by their appearance and weight across different times and stages, revealing the hidden challenges of the entertainment industry.

Stylist Jung Seol, who has over 22 years of experience in the field, expressed concern about the intense focus on weight within idol culture. She remarked, "What’s truly unfortunate about idol culture is the obsession with weight, that number. But people can’t all have the same number. It’s not like meat where 41 kg means ‘this much size.’ It doesn’t work like that."

Hwa Sa reflected on her trainee days, saying, "That was a time when I had to work hard, but I didn’t know what the right approach was. Everyone said this was how it’s done, and to debut, I had to follow. So, I just didn’t eat. On weigh-in days, the members and I would go to the pharmacy to buy laxatives and take them before weighing ourselves."

She also revealed an emotional moment when she secretly ate black sesame rice cakes but was overwhelmed with guilt afterward. 

"I thought, ‘I went through all this stress to lose weight, and now I’ve eaten again?’ All my emotions—guilt, anger—flooded in. I sobbed and ended up vomiting. That’s how it progressed into anorexia," she said, recalling the struggles she faced as a trainee.