When 21-year-old Ho saw an advertisement for SoToSo weight-loss products, she thought that she had finally found a solution to her problem.
Tired of being called chubby, Ho (who requested to be identified only by her family name) has been trying to lose weight since high school.
"The advertisement claimed the manufacturer would withdraw from the weight-loss industry if it could not make us lose 10kg," Ho said.
"They also used the family of a famous Taiwanese entertainer to promote their product. Anyone would want to respond to the ad right away," she said.
The most enticing aspect of the ad, Ho said, was its promise that she could continue to eat and drink as normal.
As she is a college student, the salesperson even offered to secure a small loan for her if she had any problem paying for the product, which could cost NT$58,500.
Three months after Ho purchased the product, however, her weight had increased from 53kg to 54kg, and she was almost dehydrated as a result of diarrhea, Ho said.
When she asked for a refund, the company said that she could only have one-third of the money back, she said.
Cases like these have compelled the John Tung Foundation to analyze the ingredients of some of the weight-loss products currently available on the local market, the foundation said at a press conference yesterday where Ho told her story.
According to the foundation, while some of the products failed to comprehensively list their ingredients, others simply used a different name for products that are already well-known.
Lin Chuen-chi (林純吉), a member of the Taipei Veterans' General Hospital emergency-room staff, said that dehydration was the most common reaction among people using weight-loss products, as some of the products contain laxative ingredients such as senna. Others become hyperactive because of ingredients which stimulate the central nervous system.
Lin said that a product became a potentially fatal drug if it contained more than 12mg of senna.
"The best way to lose weights is move more and eat less," Lin said at the press conference.
Despite complaints of side effects, SoToSo continued placing full-page advertisements in the local press, proclaiming that "anyone can lose 24kg and still keep munching," the foundation said.
The foundation has set up a center to assist people with complaints to present their case to the legal authorities.
Sheu Hui-yu (許惠玉), director of the foundation's food nutrition division, said that people seem to lose their better judgment whenever they hear the words "weight loss."
There is no such thing as weight-loss food products, she said.
No immediate response was available from SoToSo yesterday.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods