Eating is a Competitive Sport

I don’t know quite what to make of this latest trend. Apparently in the coming days there will be a competitive hamburger eating contest to be held by Krystal Co. of fast food restaurants down in the south. The defending champ, Takeru Kobayashi of Japan, set the record last year when he downed 67 burgers in eight minutes. Now I have always believed in enjoying the food you eat. Savor every bite; but apparently, those who chose to eat in the world of competitive eating, it is all about the quantity, not quality.

Competitive eating isn’t just a ‘sport’ held during fairs and carnivals anymore either. Gone are the days when a local champ was heralded for his culinary killing style and speed. These days there are organized circuits with regulations on safety and equity in these contests. This organization is by no means limited to domestic contests either; no, safety and rules are regulated by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFCE). Founded by Richard and George Shea in 1997, the Federation regulates all internationally recognized competitive eating contests.

The unfortunate thing is that by hyping this type of contest to this level is that kids, who are often impressionable, may find this to be a cool thing. If one is to stop and think about it, what is there to prevent a kid from wanting to enter this circuit? Football players put their health on the line every game, other athletes sacrifice so much to remain in top physical shape in order to have the endurance and strength to win. Competitive eaters? Well, I guess they have to sacrifice tailored pants for pants with elastic in the waistband. How else can they eat so many hot dogs, hamburgers, slices of pizza or what have you?

While the trend isn’t something that is ‘sweeping the nation’ as yet, the fact that things are reaching the point where we have international bodies regulating the rules in these contests signals that things will continue to escalate. It may not be much longer before we start seeing contrasting shows on rival networks. On one channel will be shows on who can lose the most weight while on a competing network we’ll see a show where the competition is to see who can gain the most. And anyone who has ever worked out with the goal of losing weight will tell you, it’s far easier to gain than to lose.