Jeong Ga Eun starts ballet at 48 to manage menopause

Actress Jeong Ga Eun shared her thoughts on managing health in middle age by starting ballet at the age of 48. Her decision to choose ballet—not just for shaping her physique, but as an exercise to correct posture and restore physical function—is drawing attention as she defies conventional age norms to create a new daily routine.

On the 8th, Jeong posted photos of herself in a ballet class on her SNS, stating, "I started ballet for my health and for correct posture. 'What kind of ballet at this age?' Today is the youngest day of my life. I've already completed five sessions."

In the photos, Jeong is seen focused on her class, dressed in ballet attire and placing her leg on the bar. Despite having only completed five sessions, she showed signs of adapting to the exercise by demonstrating relatively stable postures.

Jeong did not describe her purpose for starting ballet as simple weight loss. She wrote, "Elegance is still far off, and I'm not even aiming to be a swan. I just want to straighten my hunched back and get healthy." She added with her characteristic witty tone, "Wearing ballet clothes makes me want to pretend to be elegant for no reason."

Unlike general aerobic exercises, ballet simultaneously requires balance, flexibility, strength, and posture control. In particular, because one must constantly be conscious of body alignment and center of gravity while performing movements, it is often used to train body awareness and functional movement, which becomes increasingly important with age.

Jeong also placed more emphasis on using her body properly rather than just creating a 'pretty body.' This aligns with the recent trend among middle-aged women to manage body composition and function—such as muscle mass, posture, and flexibility—rather than just focusing on reducing weight numbers.

Her ballet challenge also drew reactions from colleagues. Comedian Shim Jin-hwa expressed their closeness by joking, "You are so pretty. I was planning to start too, but seeing you, I feel it's too late for me."

Born in 1978, Jeong first gained fame as a winner of the 2001 Miss Korea Gyeongnam pageant before expanding her career as a broadcaster and actress. She has been active across variety shows, dramas, and commercials, and has maintained a strong presence in the fashion and beauty sectors thanks to her tall stature and excellent proportions.

In her personal life, she married in 2016 and divorced in 2018, after which she has been balancing work and parenting while raising her daughter alone. Recently, rather than the glamorous image she showed on broadcasts in the past, she has been more candidly sharing her current daily life, physical changes, and life as a parent through SNS and personal channels.

In a recently released vlog, she even revealed that she has started taking medication after experiencing difficulties with menopause symptoms. Her confession that she "couldn't hold out any longer" shows that the physical changes occurring after middle age are not something to be hidden or endured, but a part of life that must be managed and addressed.

In this context, starting ballet holds more meaning for Jeong than a simple hobby. This is because she does not define her late 40s as a time that is too late to start exercising, but rather accepts it as a starting point to learn new ways to care for her current body.

Therefore, Jeong's sentiment that "today is the youngest day of my life" carries a resonance different from a simple self-improvement slogan. It is an attitude of redefining her life based on her current body and life, rather than defining youth as a time in the past. Her most realistic reason for starting ballet at 48 is not to aim for being a perfect ballerina, but to straighten her hunched back and become healthy.