The comparison is chalk and cheese, if you’ll pardon the pun
If rumours are to be believed, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un‘s weight loss is due to a lack of cheese.
As reported by the Metro, while authorities are insisting that he is eating less for the “sake of the country” – with North Korea still enduring widespread food shortages – an expert on the surveillance state says it’s more likely Covid restrictions getting in the way.
Speaking to the outlet, Dr. Sojin Lim said that “We know that he has good sources, he enjoys cheese, he’s a heavy drinker, he has access to all junk foods” – at his heaviest, the 38-year-old was said to weigh over 20 stone and to even have fractured his ankles.
The most interesting part of this story is Kim Jong-un's staggering weight loss. He looks almost unrecognisable. https://t.co/H3cGcCC74e
— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) January 1, 2022
Lim went on to say that “because of these border closures the way he brings all these foods into North Korea will have been cut. So he doesn’t have the same variety anymore.”
Citizens are said to have been worried by images of a thinning Kim Jong-un for some time, with many spotting plasters and mystery marks on his skin as rumours of his ill-health continue to rumble.
However, the UCLan lecturer went on to note that the leader “can’t sustain his figure as a fat person because in the domestic environment people are starving […] “If he sustains that look, that will only add to the grievances of people. So tactically it could coincide with that.”
All that being said, many think that Kim Jong-un’s weight loss is now being used as a propaganda tactic, i.e making him like a “man of the people” – as Lim puts it: “It also shows people that ‘I’m with you, I’m not taking all this food for myself, I’m like you, I’m also suffering.'”
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