Sasang Typology

Health > Healthy Life | By CGI Holistic Wellness Center

The Sasang typology is a system that classifies people into four different categories based on their physical characters. They are Taeyang, Taeum, Soyang, and Soeum. It is widely used in traditional Korean medicine. The idea behind is that same food communed by different people have different effects. Therefore, knowing the type one’s characters belong to and food known to be beneficial to its kind is a way to live a long and healthy life.

Taeyang

- Physical Charaters: Clean looking. Big head, Strong upper body but weak waist. Thick neck

- Personality: Independent, Easy to make friend but sometime becomes too aggressive and likes to point out other’s faults so do not have many close friends. Likes to exaggerate, emotional, smart, tends to see things only black and white (right or wrong), tend to explode when stressed or pressured

- Illnesses: Weak legs and joint pain in legs when weather is cold, tend to throw up if stressed, frequent stomach ache, diarrhea   

- Good Food: clams, squid, grapes, apple, crucian carp

- Not Good Food: Beef, Pork and other meat with lots of fat, radish, sugar, chilly pepper and other spices, garlic  

Taeum

- Physical Charaters: Small upper body, strong lower body, Round face, Big belly (Many but not all)

- Personality: Does not express feelings much, patient, lazy, greedy, family-oriented

- Illnesses: Head ache, joint pain in waist, high or low blood pressure, appendix, colitis, asthma, heart disease

- Good Food: Beef, radish, mushroom, bean, sweet potato, seaweed, pumpkin, peanuts and etc

- Not Good Food: Pork, chicken, eggs, goat, apple, cabbage

Soyang

- Physical Charaters: Pale or redish face, sharp jaw, thin lips, strong and big upper body, weak lower body, thin and long neck

- Personality: active, aggressive, short tempered, detail-oriented, too confident, arrogant

- Illnesses: frequent head ache, diarrhea, nose bleeding, throw up, week kidney, easy to get diabetes and paralyzed lower body   

- Good Food: pork, duck, red bean, barley, apple, tomato, strawberry, egg plant

- Not Good Food: beef, chicken, peanut, milk, honey, syrup

Soum

- Physical Charaters: round face, clean skin, small body overall, narrow chest, big hips, tends to hunch over

- Personality: Respectful, likable, tends to talk about him/herself, jealous

- Illnesses: many stomach problems, head ache, constipation, body ache

- Good Food: lamb, goat, chicken, quill, eel, mullet, anchovy

- Not Good Food: barely, red bean, sweet potato, walnut, watermelon, pear, cucumber