Should We Fear For His Health?
Joey Chestnut turning to Pepto-Bismol after winning Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, held on Coney Island.
Joey Chestnut won Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest again this year, eating 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes. It was the seventh straight time that Chestnut has won the annual Coney Island event, and the third time in the past six years that he’d set a new world record.
(Totaling up those six contests, Chestnut has eaten 380 hot dogs across six annual 10-minute increments—which means in the equivalent of one hour, he’s devoured more than 110,000 calories, or as many calories as the average person is recommended to consume in nearly two months.)
This is the American sporting scene, circa Independence Day 2013. We fear for football players and their dementia, and chide baseball officials for not making pitchers wear helmets.
But we celebrate men who down 20,000 calories-worth of hot dogs in 10 minutes, with few thoughts about their short- or long-term health.
And that’s a little odd, not just because of the grotesque nature of the event, but because there’s a clear limiting factor on competitive eating: The human stomach can only take so much before it breaks.
Do competitive eaters need to be protected from themselves?
Of course, our bodies can take only so much ofanything before we suffer. Training too hard in the sun can lead to heatstroke, and getting knocked in the head can lead to hematomas. But growing awareness and scrutiny has forced pro leagues to institute more protections, and we castigate coaches and their sports when athletes seem to be pushed too far.
We don’t worry about competitive eaters the same way. Instead, we celebrate the spectacle. (A typical lede today, courtesy of SBNation.com: “1,776 reasons you should watch Joey Chestnut.”)
Is that because the sport’s in its infancy? Or because competitive eaters look like … well … we do?
Chestnut is 6 feet tall and weighs about 220 pounds. Bryce Harper or LeBron James, he is not. And the nature of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest—held on a national holiday, televised on ESPN, with average-looking guys being treated like heavyweight champions—seems like wish fulfillment in a way that other professional sports, with their celestially gifted athletes, have ceased to be.
Yet like every sport, the competitors court risks to their health by stepping on the field, or in this case, sitting at the table. Chestnut supplanted superstar Takeru Kobayashi, who was briefly felled by an arthritic jaw—like “Roger Clemens, his groin acting up, his fastball no longer so punishing at age 44, or Jimmy Connors running on empty at the 1991 U.S. Open,” Jason Fagonewrote at Slate in 2008. And at least a dozen people competing in amateur competitive eating contests— “unsanctioned events,” as pros like Chestnut like to call them—have died from mishaps like drinking too much water orchoking on cockroaches.
Ruptured stomach can be a death blow
But of all the potential risks, there’s one that’s especially terrifying: The ruptured stomach.
“Is it possible to eat yourself to death?” science writer Mary Roach wonderedat Salon.com in 1999. “How much food will it take?” After reviewing decades of literature, Roach found that about four quarts worth of food was considered the “rupture threshold” before a stomach burst, and that most people who suffered from a ruptured stomach died within hours.
“The human gastrointestinal tract is home to trillions of bacteria, which, should they escape the confines of their stinky, labyrinthine home, can create a massive and often fatal systemic infection,” Roach warns.
“The human gastrointestinal tract is home to trillions of bacteria, which, should they escape the confines of their stinky, labyrinthine home, can create a massive and often fatal systemic infection,” Roach warns.
There haven’t been many studies of competitive eaters, but researchers haveconcluded that the eaters’ stomachs—whether because of nature, nurture, or some combination—tend to be incredibly flexible and can stretch to hold much more food than an average person. But in theory, if eaters keep chomping at the bit to set new records, even an incredibly limber stomach can be stretched too far.
In a chat on ESPN.com a few years ago, Chestnut was asked about the risk of dying in a competitive eating event. And like many pro athletes who push their limits, he was confident: It wouldn’t happen to him.
“[A] sanctioned contest it is pretty safe,” he replied “and there are always EMTs there just in case. And as far as choking, the muscles in my throat are so strong [that] I cannot imagine choking.”
In other interviews, Chestnut has stressed that he’s hungry to stay on top.
“I think my body was built to eat 68 hot dogs,” Chestnut told Vanity Fair‘s John Heilpern in 2011. “It’s natural.”
Let’s hope so. Death by hot dog is no way to go.
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