On mukbang, competitive speed eating and other food-related excesses
Our body is a temple of God. This succinct summary of a verse reminds me to give due respect to our body, either by means of regulating what we eat as well as what we say, think and do. I must say as a caveat that I am not a very religious person but my spirituality is very much in touch with my well-being. Even in Ayurveda, a wholesome body is where the three doshas, the Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, are in balance, along with balanced agni or the digestive fire, dhatus or the tissues, and malas or the waste products. Meanwhile, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, a wholesome body is achieved through a balanced diet that considers the energetic properties of food and their impact on the body, and this also involves eating at regular times, consuming a variety of foods, and focusing on foods that are appropriate for one's specific needs and the season. Just taking these as examples, one can say that excessive food intake is not part of any religious or medical philosophy.
Following my blog on Euleen Castro’s failure to say her prayers to show gratitude for her meal and instead cursed, I am now driven to write something about food-related contents that glorifies excess food intakes. I had been meaning to write down my thoughts on this for so long already and got the “big push” when confronted with the latest news that a vlogger in Leyte, who was initially hospitalized for severe abdominal pain, died because of complications after he ate a whole chicken including the chicken bones.
The content creator did so as an acceptance to a challenge from a social media follower who promised him 20,000 pesos. However, he was rushed to the hospital days after the filming and an X-ray confirmed that the chicken bone fragments had caused internal injury and blockage in his intestines. The follower who challenged the vlogger did not make good of his promise of reward and is nowhere to be found.
This made me angry. Bragging rights for excessive and dangerous food intake is not a superpower but a human foible worthy of cringe. It’s a disrespect to our body which we are bound to take care of. Whichever way I look at it, I could not seem to fathom its profound meaning, if there is one in the first place, or find some justification to this excess.
Mukbang in online era
Initially, mukbang originated in South Korea in the early 2010s to serve as a way for people to share meals and combat loneliness through live broadcasts. The term combines the Korean words for "eating" and "broadcast". Through the years, mukbang evolved as an online content where a vlogger eats large quantities of food while interacting with the audience. The audience is supposed to have their ASMR or autonomous sensory meridian response triggered by watching huge servings of mouth-watering food as well as hearing the swish and crunch of food being chewed by the vlogger.
There is a list of potential concerns that could arise in this excessive eating featured in online contents. First, desensitize viewers to follow mukbang despite unhealthy eating habits are being slowly formed; second, normalize or encourage excessive food consumption as part of daily life and third, potentially lead to eating disorder patterns. In addition, the focus on large quantities of food can potentially negatively impact viewers' perception of their own bodies and eating habits.
Competitive eating in real world
Meanwhile, there is also a pro-world of excessive eaters that really exists called competitive eating around the world. There exists somewhere a contest on most chicken wings eaten, most pizza eaten, then raw onions, chili peppers, tacos, crawfish, curries, nettle, burgers and the list goes on. In fact, the most hot dogs eaten in a 10-minute contest is 83 as set by Joey Chestnut was featured on Netflix.
These competitive speed eating are not without dangers. Risks posed for contestants are usually choking, aspiration, gastric rupture, stomach perforation and other medical complications like gastroparesis or slowed stomach emptying, intractable nausea, vomiting, and other long-term health issues.
One incident that stuck to me is that in 2007, Jennifer Strange participated in a radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest where contestants drank water to win a Nintendo Wii. Strange drank nearly two gallons (estimated to be between five and nine liters according to one source) of water in a few hours and later died from hyponatremia or water intoxication.
Scouring the internet, one can find a lot of casualties in this kind of competition. In October 2023, Natalie Buss, 37, collapsed and died after taking part in the marshmallow eating competition at a rugby club in Wales, United Kingdom. There were recorded deaths during or after the competitive eating contest, like one in swallowing 50 eggs competition where the contestant died on his 41st egg; in a pancake eating where a university student died of choking; in a doughnut eating contest and many more.
I must say that the motivations for this competitive speed eating craze all over the world are cash prize and social media followers, adopting ABC News’ succinctly worded ends of those who participated in a sushi eating contest in Sydney in 2019.
These mukbang, competitive eating contests and online eating challenges are excesses that hurt the body and threaten life too. Hence, I really wanted to express my disagreement on these kinds of challenges. Likewise, for me eating must be part of a human ritual to be cherished and enjoyed, not neglected and abused.
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