Why are competitive eaters thin?
Competitive eating is an exceedingly odd—not to mention distasteful—sport. I’m not at all into watching people stuff their faces at rates that seem physically impossible and at the very least highly undesirable.
But I was reminded of it recently because yesterday, the Fourth of July, is traditional for hot dog eating contests, and there were a number of reports about the Coney Island venue, at which the winner managed to stuff 62 of the things down his craw in a mere 10 minutes. And this by no means exceeded his own PR of 68.
You may notice from this photo of the Coney Island contest that, contrary to what one might expect, the contenders are all trim:
This is usual in eating contests, and counter-intuitive. I have often wondered about it, and this time I decided to see what the explanation might be.
Turns out that competitive eating isn’t just an exercise in gluttony, it’s also a sport in which the top contenders must be in the proper shape. And it also turns out that the proper shape is not rotund, it’s lean. There’s a good reason for this—actually, several good reasons:
The size of the stomach at rest is inconsequential. All that matters is the stomach’s ability to expand, to adapt itself to the amount of food being shoved down the esophagus. And as in any other competitive sport, stomach-stretching skills require training.
Kobayashi’s regimen includes shrinking his gut by jogging for hours, then distending it by chugging gallons of water. He regularly feasts on giant meals of low-fat, high-fiber foods like cabbage, which stay in the stomach longer before breaking down. (By the way, the world record for cabbage consumption is 6 pounds, 9 ounces, in 9 minutes, held by American Thomas Hardy.) And he keeps trim: A skinny man’s stomach has little fat to push against it and fight the food for space.
So there you have it: huge amounts of exercise and low-calorie food.
And I don’t even like to think of the results of that cabbage competition.
[NOTE: For those who might be inclined to criticize Americans for being so uniquely depraved as to indulge in these contests (as I read in the comments section of one article), think again—eating contests are neither as popular nor as well-compensated in this country as they are in many other parts of the world.]
I am clearly doing this diet thing all wrong. As a result my hot dog count yesterday was …1.
vanderleun: Mine was one as well.
But it was awfully good.
It’s hard to savor them when you’re eating 62 at a clip.
I hope Joey picked up a toilet plunger with his winnings.
I sure wouldn’t want to cook for those guys. Six pounds of cabbage and nothing else? BORING!
If you have the food, you can make a sport out of it. But if you are like North Korea, then there are no such things as eating contests.
It’s rare to find a country that can put eating contests as a some kind of mass popular thing for the peasants. Other countries place a higher value on food and quantity, thus such occasions might be more special. And rarer.
Please refrain from calling this a sport. It’s a competition.
The rule: If you can smoke a cigar and drink a cocktail while competing, it is not a sport. Sports require athletic ability.
Golf, Bowling, Checkers and Dominoes to name just a few are competitions not sport.
Since the eating contestants were drinking water they could have easily grabbed a puff between Wieners.
As a sidebar/exception. Major Leaguer John Kruk was at spring training years ago. He was swinging a bat with a lit cigarette in his mouth near the spectators. An elderly lady told him that athletes shouldn’t smoke.
Kruk looked at her and said, “I’m not an athlete mam, I’m a baseball player.
So as weird as it all is..it’s merely people “training” their bodies (or body parts) to triumph in a what is essentially another example of physical competition.
Golfers and baseball players work on their swing, other athletes stretch arms, legs, adapt their diet, etc. depending on what the sport or competition requires for success.
These guys (and they are mostly guys, right?) train their stomachs to be No. 1.
I don’t think we’ll be seeing competitive eating high school teams or college scholarships any time soon, however. And Michelle O. surely wouldn’t approve 🙂
Wasn’t there some official case where someone’s cause of death was that they asphyxiated themselves by farting while asleep in bed?
I heard on the radio that the winner (Chestnut) has a $100K per annum endorsement deal for Pepto Bismol. Don’t know if it’s true or not but too good not to pass along.