Competitive eating

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Sonya Thomas and Tim Janus at the 2005 Midway Slots Crabcake Eating Competition
Sonya Thomas and Tim Janus at the 2005 Midway Slots Crabcake Eating Competition

Competitive eating is an event wherein participants consume large quantities of food in a short time period, typically 15 minutes or less, and the eater of the most food receives a prize. The type of food varies, although contests are primarily focused on fast food or dessert. Items are almost always a single type of food, such as hot dogs, pie, or mayonnaise, among many others. Competitive eating is most popular in the USA and Japan. Competitive eaters are sometimes known as "gurgitators".

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[edit] History

Pie-eating contest at the Jefferson School in Washington, DC. August 2, 1923.
Pie-eating contest at the Jefferson School in Washington, DC. August 2, 1923.

Traditionally, eating contests were often held as part of a county fair. The recent surge in the popularity of competitive eating is due in large part to televised coverage of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, an annual holiday tradition that has run on July 4 virtually every year since 1916 at Coney Island. Recently this contest has been dominated by IFOCE eater Takeru Kobayashi, who had won it every year from 2001 through 2006. Kobayashi was dethroned in 2007 by Joey Chestnut. In the 1990's competitive eating was popular in Japan but is now looked down upon.

[edit] Organizations

[edit] IFOCE

International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) hosts more than 100 Major League Eating events annually worldwide. The IFOCE, which first established eating as a sport in the 1990s, has recently launched Major League Eating to serve as an umbrella for competitive eating worldwide while also providing a recognized brand for licensing of t-shirts and other products. It features videos of contests and eaters and offers a complete online community similar to MySpace, for eating fans. Major League Eating, as overseen by the IFOCE, is the only organization that has established extensive safety regulations for events.

The IFOCE awarded nearly $350,000 in prize money in 2006. In addition to a one-hour live broadcast of the Nathan's Famous contest for ESPN, IFOCE has produced a three-hour elimination tournament on ESPN called the Alka-Seltzer US Open of Competitive Eating and additional hours of ESPN programming on eating for Johnsonville Brats and Krystal hamburgers. The IFOCE also recently produced a series of 30-minute television shows, Eats of Strength, for the high-definition network, InHD. Spike TV is also running a series of one-hour Major League Eating events featuring the top eaters of the IFOCE.

[edit] AICE

A smaller organization, the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters (AICE), established by Arnie "Chowhound" Chapman, also sanctions contests. Later Coondog O'Karma joined Arnie as his partner. This caused controversy, and was the final straw that got him kicked out of the IFOCE.

[edit] Other

Outside of the professional realm of eating challenges, amateur eating contests between friends and strangers have found their way into popular culture. Loose associations such as the Federation of Amateur Eating Contests have formed to provide spontaneous challenges to patrons of restaurants at any given time. Members enter into an agreement, often set up so that the loser of the contest pays the bill. From there, onlookers to the challenge are openly invited to enter the contest and "out eat" the competition. Several competitions have seen upwards of 20 contestants competing.

Other open-ended eating contests sponsored by restaurants can involve a challenge to eat a huge amount of foods such as a giant steak or hamburger, in a set amount of time, typically an hour. Often the prize is that the winner does not have to pay for the large amount of food they just consumed.

[edit] Famous competitive eaters

Peter Dowdeswell topped many Guinness Book of World Records eating contests until they stopped accepting new records.

Although most competitive eaters are men, a handful of female competitors, notably IFOCE eaters Sonya Thomas and Carlene LeFevre, and a newer competitor, Juliet Lee, compete among the world's best. Natsuko "Gal" Sone, weighing only 95 lbs. (43 kg), has recently demonstrated prodigious feats of eating in Japan, where she is a popular television personality, and a singer in the band Gyaruru.

[edit] Training

Being overweight is not necessarily an advantage. In fact, the "fat belt" theory holds that any excess body fat is a disadvantage in that it prevents the stomach from expanding as much as it otherwise could.[1][2] Stomach elasticity is usually considered the key to eating success, and competitors commonly train by drinking large amounts of water over a short time to stretch out the stomach. The IFOCE actively discourages training of any sort.

[edit] Media coverage

  • A 2005 Channel 4 documentary called "The Big Eat" produced by Twofour, followed the search for and training of a British Champion to compete in the Competitive Eating World Championships in New York.
  • The 2002 program, "Gut Busters," on the Discovery Channel, followed several competitive eaters' roads to the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest as well as explained some of the scientific aspects of competitive eating.
  • In 2006 MTV aired "True Life: I'm a Competitive Eater." It featured Tim "Eater X" Janus and Kobayashi.
  • On March 17, 2007, Spike TV hosted a broadcast live a competitive eating competition, "St. Patrick's Day Chowdown".

[edit] Criticism

Physicians advise that the intake of vast amounts of food over a short period of time should not be attempted without safety measures beyond the training that competitive eaters undergo to prepare for the events.

It is possible that competitive eating could lead to stomach pains, obesity and diabetes, although no long term studies have documented any serious injury related to the sport. Many competitors such as are actually quite thin, with some competitors such as Takeru Kobayashi being muscular. As long as competitors undereat while not competing, the total caloric intake need not be enough to promote fat gain. Many competitive eaters train by stretching the stomach with water drinking, which has zero calories.

Some doctors worry that repeatedly stretching the stomach may diminish its ability to function. Vomiting, though rare among gurgitators, can lead to espohageal tearing and possible infection.[3]

Competitive eating game shows were very popular in Japan in the 1990s, disappearing for several years due to a few choking deaths, but have since regained their popularity. Sanctioned eating competitions contests take precautions to prevent choking injuries.

Competitive eating may be seen to glorify overeating and gluttony, practices disapproved of by many religions.[4] Many cultures and countries look down on wasting food in general.

[edit] Competitive eating in popular culture

  • Jughead Jones a character featured in Archie Andrews comics possesses a formidable metabolism and is capable of monstrous eating bouts. As such he's also depicted very fond of competitive eating events which allow him to consume large quantities of food without having to pay for it.
  • A competitive eating event was the opening vignette of the episode of The Simpsons entitled Maximum Homerdrive, in which Homer Simpson's opponent, a truck driver, died after consuming the last bite of a monstrous steak, leaving Homer the responsibility of completing the man's cross-country delivery assignment.
  • An IFOCE King of the Hill episode, "The Fat and the Furious," had Bill Dauterive and eventually Dale Gribble participate in eating competitions.
  • An eating competition at a county fair was featured prominently in the film Beethoven's 2nd.
  • The music video of Far East Movement's Round Round features a headband wearing male and several scantily clad women engaging in a hot dog eating competition.[1]
  • A competitive pie-eating contest featured in the Stephen King novella The Body, later filmed as Stand by Me.
  • The movie Meatballs features a hot-dog-eating competition.
  • A segment of the Hungarian/French/Austrian movie Taxidermia is set in the Communist period of Hungary and features several professional competitive eaters in a rather surreal way. (The movie is based on three short stories written by Hungarian author Lajos Parti Nagy).[2]
  • In an episode of Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, Yumi competes against a golden-toothed boy in a hot-dog-eating conest.
  • In an episode of Without a trace, the FBI missing persons unit investigates the disappearance of a competitive eater.
  • In Malcolm in the Middle, the father is in a competitive eating contest at a town fair in the park.
  • In the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode 'Dog Eat Dog', a man literally eats himself to death in an eating contest. The man dies because his stomach filled and expanded into his organs.
  • In an episode of SNL, a TV Funhouse animated clip parodied Takeru Kobayashi and Dragonball Z, making him out to be a superhero who saves the day by powering up and eating walls made of hot dogs.
  • In an episode of Samurai Champloo; Mugen, Jin, and Fuu all participate in a competitive eating contest to win money. Fuu was about to win; however, she accidentally forfeited while killing a fly.
  • In the movie Cool Hand Luke the protagonist eats 50 eggs in one hour as part of a wager with the other prisoners.
  • In Judge Dredd, Competitive eating is a major sport in Mega City One.
  • In Arthur (TV series), Buster experiences insomnia as he anticipates an eating contest that he will participate in the next day.
  • In an episode of the Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold!, Arnold enters a local eating contest in an attempt to defeat Seymour, an infamous competitive eater also known as "The Bottomless Pit".
  • In episode S1e20 of Las Vegas Sam enters an eating contest when competitors come to the Montecito to train.
  • In an episode of the Larry Sanders Show Sanders showed clips from earlier shows including one of an on-air pie-eating contest

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wolf Files: Too Fat to Eat Fast?
  2. ^ The stuff of champions - The Boston Globe
  3. ^ Doctors appalled by societal glorification of binge eating
  4. ^ Beliefnet.com

[edit] External links

[edit] Literature

  • Clemens Berger: Die Wettesser. Roman, Skarabäus 2007 (The Competitive Eaters. A Novel)