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A Chinese woman recently decided to have a stomach reduction operation
after seven years of taking weight loss pills and actually putting on
100 pounds more than when she started taking them.
25-year-old Xiaoli (pseudonim) started taking weight loss pills seven
years ago, after watching a convincing commercial on TV. She weighed
around 100 pounds at the time, but felt like she needed to lose a bit of
weight, and if some pills could help her do that, than why not? The
young woman recalls that the results were encouraging at first, but as
soon as she stopped taking the pills, she not only put on all the pounds
she had lost but added a few extra as well. Little did she know that
this was the beginning of a vicious cycle that would see her spend
around 200,000 yuan ($30,000) on various weight loss pills and custom
diet plans over the next 7 years, only to have her weight double during
that time.
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Xiaoli’s story was recently published by the Chengdu Business Daily
newspaper, after the 25-year-old woman traveled from her home town of
Yibin to Chengdu, for a stomach reduction operation. She arrived at the
Chengdu People’s Hospital and told the doctors there that after 7 years
of struggling and nothing positive to show for it, the operation was her
only chance.
The woman said that after her first experience with weight loss pills,
she kept going online and searching for other pills and weight loss
plans, but the results were always the same. She can’t even remember all
the different drugs she has taken in the last 7 years, but what she does
know is that none of them worked as advertised. Yes, some actually
helped her shed up to 29 pounds a month, but as soon as she stopped
taking them, she soon ballooned back to her previous weight and even
added on more pounds.
At one point, frustrated with the false advertising, she contacted the
customer service of a certain weight loss program why they claimed their
service prevented rebound weight gain when it really didn’t, and they
just recommended her an even more complex plans and several weight loss
pills. It didn’t work.
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Xiaoli told the Chengdu Business Daily that she had spent around 200,000
yuan on weight loss pills and custom diet plans in the last 7 years, and
showed reporters her online purchasing history as proof. The woman
claimed she wanted people to be aware that advertising is very different
from reality when it comes to weight loss products, because she is a
clear example of that.
Doctors at Chengdu People’s hospital said that while Xiaoli’s eating
habits had certainly contributed to the weight gain, the drugs she had
taken during the last seven years were the main cause. Wang Zhong,
deputy director of the Department of Nutrition, told reporters that
weight loss pills work by curbing appetite, or increasing excretion to
achieve rapid weight loss, but this effect is not stable and
long-lasting. No matter how good the advertising for weight loss pills
is, weight loss is a long – term systematic process.
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