Roughly 1 in 7 male students in middle and high school smoke, a recent report by the state-run Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
The study on 80,000 students across Korea showed that the 14 percent of teenage boys smoked at least once a month. However, the smoking rates for girls have fallen steadily, from 8.9 percent in 2005 to 4 percent in 2014.
The report also showed that students are consuming more fast food, soft drinks and an increasing number are skipping breakfast, while over 80 percent exercised for less than five hours a week.
