Kim's biographer is equally critical.
"This kind of spoiled elitist behavior is not so unusual. You see it in South Korea in some of the sons of the rich and famous," Breen said. "But for such a person to be head of a country in dire need of leadership is nothing less than tragedy."
A South Korean analyst, however, finds some comfort in Kim's epicurean tastes.
"Kim Jong Il loves life. He is a drinker, a womanizer, a gourmet. To start a war requires an ascetic like Hitler who doesn't care if he lives or dies. But I can't see Kim starting a war that he will surely lose," said Kim Kyung Won, a former South Korean ambassador to the United States.
The leader's obsession with food apparently dates to his boyhood. Like many children, he was a fussy eater. Researchers found a note written by a teacher in 1952 -- the height of the Korean War -- detailing how to feed the 10-year-old heir to the North Korean leadership. (Kim's tastes at the time ran to more humble Korean dishes such as bean-paste soup and cabbage-wrapped rice, according to the note.)
Jo Yung Hwan, a South Korean scholar, says Kim's preoccupation with food grew after the death of his mother when he was 7. Jo was particularly struck by an account of a Japanese waitress who claimed that Kim as an adult liked to have food put in his mouth as if he were a child.
"That kind of behavior comes from lack of motherly love," Jo wrote in a 1996 psychological study of Kim.
For most of his adult life, Kim has been renowned for his profligate lifestyle. To some extent, the tales of decadent womanizing and drinking might have been exaggerated by South Korea's anti-communist propaganda, but much of it probably was true. In the early 1990s, trade figures leaked to the media revealed that Kim was the largest single consumer of Hennessy cognac, importing more than $650,000 worth of top-of-the-line stock a year for his private collection.
Kim is believed to have moderated his ways on the advice of his doctors. He reportedly quit smoking in 1999 and lost weight. He switched from cognac to red wine.
"He was really obese. We recommended that he eat more traditional Korean foods and natural herbs that were good for the heart and veins," said Seok, the doctor who worked as a researcher at the Long Life Research Institute in Pyongyang.
