On the Rodiculous podcast, cooking influencer Rosanna Pansino discussed her experience with Matt Stonie while they recorded an episode of "Youtube Creators". The discussion about Matt starts around minute 39. At 42:00, Rosanna says that Matt told her that he wants to move away from competitive eating since it is taking a toll on his health.
NOVA PBS has a video asking "What Happens to Your Body During a Speed Eating Competition?" containing interviews with Pat Bertoletti and Tim Janus.
NJArts on “No One Died”
NJ Arts has an article about the new documentary, “No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story” which includes an interview with contest co-founder Angelo Cataldi. He discusses the medical personnel (or lack thereof) at the event:
Which was a good thing because, until 2007, the only medical personnel at Wing Bowl was Dr. St. George Hunt, a local veterinarian. “He couldn’t Heimlich anyone,” says Cataldi. “Basically, he neutered cats. I ended up with two of them.”
He laughs. “It was a joke.”
Yes, a big ha-ha, until Ice Cream Man showed up. “A guy came in for an eating stunt. He wanted to eat two gallons of ice cream, and we thought that was cool,” says Cataldi. “So, the guy ate the first gallon of ice cream fine. He was feeling good.”
But a few spoonfuls into the second gallon, his lips started turning blue. “By now, the guy is shivering and he’s moving slower. We ended up calling 911. He was in some physical jeopardy at one point. And that was the day we were told all eating stunts had to be approved by the legal department and that there had to be doctors on duty at the event — things we should have been doing all along.”
Onmanorama reports that a fifty year old man passed away choking during an idli eating contest in Palakkad, India.
WMUR reports that New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu applied the Heimlich maneuver during today's lobster roll eating contest at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival in Hampton, NH. The choking competitor, Christian Moreno, continued with the competition after the incident was resolved. update news video
The Daily Mail has an article about the health risks of competitive eating.
Must Share News reports Chinese mukbang celebrity Pan Xiaoting passed away while livestreaming on July 14. She would attempt to eat up to 10kg (22 pounds) in sessions that could last up to 10 hours. According to the autopsy, mass amounts of undigested food was found in her stomach. (Via HardwareZone forum)
Time Magazine on competitive eating health risks
Time Magazine has an article about competitive eating health risks which also offers an update on Tim “Eater X” Janus.
Tim Janus, a 47-year old ex-competitive eater who Metz has studied in scientific research, quit the sport in 2016 after 11 years “out of an abundance of caution” partly based on Metz’s findings about the risks. He was also concerned about the harms of throwing up following competition, a practice that he describes as widespread. “When you’re eating that much food, you can’t digest it all,” he says. “Your stomach is too full to move things along. Throwing up after the contest is a necessary part of the sport.”
Janus tried to collaborate with other pro eaters to share and track their health to better understand the effects of competing, but he couldn’t rally their interest. He’s now a foreign service officer in Mexico City in good health. Most of his former competitors say they’re healthy, too, but he “didn’t want to continue and realize I made a mistake.”
Kobayashi announces retirement in Netflix documentary
Takeru Kobayashi is one of four subjects in the new Netflix documentary, “Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut”. His segment focuses on his inability to feel hunger after a 20 year competitive eating career. He decides to retire from eating contests to improve his gastrointestinal health: (youtube trailer) (transcript)
After analyzing Kobayashi’s poop and also performing other tests, including scanning his brain’s responses to images of different foods, doctors informed him that his microbiome was actually in good shape, but his brain scans were abnormal. This revelation means that getting to the bottom of Kobayashi’s lack of hunger will be more complex, and in order to focus on restoring his health, he’s decided to quit competitive eating. He has “mixed feelings” about it, but after years of ignoring his body’s signals, he’s eager to see if he can repair his gut-brain connection.
Lad Bible has a post about Adam "Beard Meats Food" Moran attempting Johnny Scoville’s Tube of Terror Challenge, which he claimed made him feel like he was going to die and resulted in the temporary loss of hearing in his left ear.
Health Digest has an article titled "What Happens to Your Body When You're a Competitive Eater For a Living".
The BBC has an article about Natalie Beddau's death from choking on marshmallows at a charity competition held at the Beddau rugby club in Wales. The objective of the event was apparently to stuff the most marshmallows in a competitor's most instead of a traditional eating contest.
The Sun reports that a 37 year old woman passed away after choking during a marshmallow eating contest held Saturday at the Beddau Rugby Club in Wales, UK. The BBC also has an article about the fatality that does not mention the cause of death.
CBC reports a customer at Ship & Anchor Pub in Calgary was hospitalized tonight and is currently in a life threatening condition. He reportedly choked while competing in an Oktoberfest hot dog eating contest, but that has yet to be confirmed. (Pub statement about incident)
The Associated Press has an article asking: "Spicy food challenges have a long history. Have they become too extreme?"
The Paqui One Chip Challenge has been withdrawn from stores after Harris Wolobah, a Worcester, MA high school student, passed away after eating the super spicy chip dusted with Carolina Reaper and Naga Viper peppers.
George Shea announced on twitter that "Hungry" Charles Hardy, also known as the Godfather of Competitive Eating, passed away. He was runner in the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest in 1998 and 1999 and also had top 5 finishes in 2000 and 2001. Hardy's loss to winner Steve Keiner by a quarter of a hot dog in the 1999 Nathan's contest was controversial since Keiner began eating before the official start signal had been given.
IndiaToday.com reports that Bipin Kumar Paswan, a 25 year old from Gopalganj in Bihar, passed away on Thursday after being challenged by his friends to eat 150 momos. Paswan's father believes that the dumplings were poisoned and the eating challenge was set up to murder his son.
Larell Marie Mele has set up a gofundme to help pay for George Chiger's surgery which took place three weeks ago that included amputation of a toe. He is currently experiencing issues with an incision on his big toe.
TechCrunch has a post about youtube updating its policy on eating disorder content to ban videos showing "imitable content". Since anyone can imitate a restaurant challenge video by ordering the oversized menu item, this policy could theoretically result in the termination of all food challenge videos.
The Epoch Times reports that Hatsuyo "The Witch" Sugawara, a mainstay on the Japanese team for the "Battle of Big Eaters" international competition, passed away earlier this month due to colorectal cancer. She was 59.
Daily Star has an article listing five eating contest fatalities.
Grunge.com has a post looking back at the October 2012 death of Edward Archbold, who passed away after choking in a cockroach eating contest held at Ben Siegel Reptiles in Deerfield Beach, FL.
RIP Pat “from Moonachie” Philbin
RIP Pat “from Moonachie” Philbin, whose passing was announced earlier today. He had suffered significant diabetes-related issues in recent years which required amputation of a foot. In addition to qualifying for Nathan’s Famous finals 5 times (2005-08, 2011), he was also a frequent guest on the Opie & Anthony radio show. His most famous moment on that program was probably the “baby bird” video from December 2006 in which he intentionally regurgitated egg nog into an intern’s mouth. updateNJ.com has an article about Pat.
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