Surge in Weight Loss Trends Leads to Spike in Diet Product Complaints; Older Adults Increasingly Affected

▲ A notice regarding the out-of-stock status of Mounjaro at a pharmacy in Seoul.

As interest in weight loss grows alongside the craze for obesity treatments like Wegovy and Mounjaro, the market for diet-related health functional foods is expanding. However, reports of side effects and consumer damages related to these products continue to rise steadily.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and analyzed by Representative Lee Yang-soo of the People Power Party on Friday (June 26), a total of 2,375 reports of adverse events related to health functional foods claiming to reduce body fat have been filed over the past five years (2020 to May 2026).

The number of reports, which remained under 100 annually—with 72 in 2020, 57 in 2021, and 85 in 2022—surged to 217 in 2023, followed by 717 in 2024 and 920 in 2025.

As of this year, 307 cases have already been reported.

These reports of adverse events refer to symptoms experienced after consuming health functional foods and do not necessarily imply a confirmed causal relationship with the products.

Recently, there has been a significant increase in reports from middle-aged and older adults.

Looking at last year's reports by age group, those in their 60s and older accounted for the highest number at 279 cases, followed by those in their 50s with 151 cases and those in their 40s with 122 cases.

In particular, reports from those aged 60 and older more than tripled compared to the previous year (77 cases).

This trend is attributed to the growing interest in weight management and health among the elderly, coupled with the heightened social attention toward obesity treatments, which has driven up demand for health functional foods.

During the same period, 484 applications for damage relief related to diet products were filed with the Korea Consumer Agency. The annual number of reports also saw a sharp increase, rising from 56 in 2021 to 152 in 2025.

Notably, cases reported to the Consumer Agency included instances where products were advertised as containing Wegovy ingredients, but the actual ingredient labels did not list such components.

In addition, there were numerous reports of consumers losing contact with sellers after purchasing products through social media advertisements, or being refused refunds despite promises of "full refunds if ineffective" after they found the products did not work as claimed.

(Photo: Yonhap News)

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