This year, 43.6% of teenagers said they did not eat breakfast on at least five days a week, the highest in 20 years since statistics were first compiled in 2005. The share of teenagers who ate fruit at least once a day was 17.8%, down from last year.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on the 4th released the results of the 2025 Youth Health Behavior Survey with these findings. To use indicators for preventing and managing chronic diseases, the government has surveyed and released youth health behaviors every year since 2005. Those surveyed are 60,000 students attending 800 middle and high schools nationwide. The survey tracks their smoking and drinking status, as well as physical activity and dietary indicators.
The agency said that while smoking and drinking among teenagers showed slight improvement in this year's survey, dietary indicators need improvement.
According to this year's survey results, 43.6% of teenagers did not eat breakfast on at least five days a week. That is about 1.6 times higher than in 2005 (27.1%), when statistics were first compiled, a record high. The rate among girls was 45.3%, 3.4 percentage points higher than boys (41.9%). The share of teenagers who said they eat fruit at least once a day was 17.8%, down 0.2 percentage point from last year.
By contrast, 27.0% of teenagers said they eat fast food at least three times a week, down 1.9 percentage points from last year's record high of 28.9%. Intake rates for sweet beverages and high-caffeine drinks both improved from a year earlier. In the agency's first survey of zero-calorie beverage intake this year, 16.5% of teenagers said they drink zero-calorie beverages at least three times a week.
Indicators showing the status of smoking and drinking also improved this year. The current smoking rate, the share of people who smoked on at least one day in the past 30 days, was 3.3% this year (boys 4.4%, girls 2.1%). That is about one-third of the 11.8% (boys 14.3%, girls 8.9%) recorded in the first survey in 2005.
The current drinking rate also continued to decline from 27.0% in 2005 (boys 27.0%, girls 26.9%) to 8.0% this year (boys 9.8%, girls 6.1%), following last year. The current drinking rate refers to the share of teenagers who had at least one drink in the past 30 days.
In addition, mental health indicators varied by gender. The share of all teenagers who feel stress edged down to 41.3% this year from 42.3% last year. By gender, the rate for boys fell to 32.9% from 35.2% last year, while the rate for girls ticked up to 50.3% from 49.9%.
Im Seung-gwan, commissioner of the agency, said, "Smoking and drinking have generally improved over the past 10 years, but overlapping use of tobacco products continues to increase, so monitoring is needed along with interest and support for improving dietary habits."