Kimchi is the name that outside of Korea, often refers to a dish made from fermented spicy cabbage - in Korea, it refers to a variety of pickled vegetables and preserved. Like sauerkraut and similar dishes, Kimchi is an acquired taste, but once you love it, you love it and can't do without it.
And, according to a series of recent headlines, Kimchi is also a great tool for weight loss. Based on the headlines, eating up to three servings of kimchi per day is a great way to shed those pesky pounds and keep yourself as light as possible by using nothing but a fermented superfood.
Unfortunately for those of us who love kimchi, the reality is much less hopeful than the headlines. While Kimchi is a fairly healthy thing to eat, there is no good evidence that eating it will help you lose weight. The recent headlines are - amusingly - the work of Big Kimchi, trying to sell you more varieties of fermented cabbage than you eat.
Look at the science.
Science
Research has everyone very excited about a new epidemiological study published in BMJ Open, a branch of the more famous British Medical Journal. It's a very basic cross-sectional study, in which the authors took a large database of South Koreans, who provided information on both their diet and other health factors between 2004 and 2013, and analyzed data from this study to see if there is a relationship between someone reporting feeling bloated and their kimchi consumption. The term cross-sectional here means the authors only have a single survey response from each participant - they can't follow people over time.
Immediately, that means this study tells us very little about causal relationships. You really can't say if kimchi is making people gain/lose weight if all you have is a single point in time - you can only say that people who report eating more/less kimchi are also more likely to be obese.