Koreans are drinking more alcohol but eating less protein, and there is still too much salt in their diet despite wall-to-wall health coverage in the media.

◆ Drinking

The Ministry of Health and Welfare surveyed 10,000 households and found that alcohol consumption increased 2.5 times from 46.5 g on average a day in 1998 to 115.6 g in 2016, perhaps because more people are happy to drink alone.

Men still drink much more than women at 182.2 g of alcohol a day, but women are also drinking much harder than they used to, with the amount almost tripling from 16.6 g a day to 48.6 g over the same 18 years period.

An even bigger problem is high-risk drinking, which is set at more than seven shot glasses of soju or five cans of beer in one sitting at least twice a week. Some 21.2 percent of men fall into this category.

Among men in their 70s, high-risk drinkers dwindled from 12.8 to 6.3 percent over the period, but among those in their 20s it rose from 13 to 17.7 percent and among 30-somethings from 19.3 to 23.5 percent. Among women, high-risk drinkers rose 1.5 to 2.8 times in the age groups under 50.

Oh Bum-jo at Boramae Medical Center in Seoul said, "High-risk alcohol consumption is increasing rapidly among young people and women. This could be due to the growing popularity of drinking alone these days."

