Relationship between Obesity and Korean and Mediterranean Dietary Patterns: A Review of the Literature

Obesity is a well-known risk factor for various chronic diseases. Among the various risk factors for obesity, diet is one of the most modifiable. This study aimed to review current research on the association between obesity and the Korean diet compared with the Mediterranean diet. An electronic literature search was conducted using Medline and Embase. Totals of 10 and 17 studies were included in this review for the Korean dietary pattern (KDP) and the Mediterranean dietary pattern (MDP), respectively. These studies mainly applied factor analysis for the KDP and index analysis for the MDP. Only one of 10 KDP articles reported a significant inverse association with obesity, while most MDP studies showed a preventive association with obesity. There are a limited number of KDP studies compared with MDP studies, and the methods of deriving the dietary patterns are different between the KDP and MDP. To produce more conclusive evidence on the association between the KDP and obesity, well-designed and controlled trials or large prospective cohort studies are needed.