8 Asians

Small Asians, Big Eaters

By Jeff | Sunday, November 1, 2009 | Comments


Competitive Eater Juliet Lee
(Flickr photo credit: Vidiot)

One of Number Two Son’s favorite shows is Man vs Food.  In this show, host Adam Richman goes to various towns and cities and indulges in the local fare.  Toward the end of each show, he engages in a local food challenge where he needs to finish either some huge amount of food, something extremely spicy, or some combination of both in order to win a prize or recognition.  Richman is a fairly big guy, and while he says that he is not a competitive eater, more often than not he wins the challenge.  Despite his size, bulk is not necessary to win eating contests.  Take for instance, Juliet Lee. This 5 foot tall slightly over 100 pound mother and beauty salon owner is also ranked #11 in the world of competitive eating (believe it or not, there are rankings for competitive eaters).   She has eaten 34 hot dogs within minutes!

She is not the only Asian big eater with a small stature.  We have written about 128 pound Takeru Kobayashi, long time champion of the Nathan’s July 4th Hot Dog challenge (53 hot dogs in 12 minutes), and formerly #1 ranked eater.  He is not a huge guy.  Neither is 100 pound Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas, ranked #6 in the world and eater of 41 hot dogs within 10 minutes.  How can these small Asians eat so much?  According to the International Federation of Competitive Eating (yes, folks, there really is such an organization), smaller Asian “gurgitators” (their name for eating competitors) often do better than huge guys because they don’t have a belt of fat around their waists that restricts  stomach expansion.

I look at these Asian “gurgitators” with a mix of pride, disgust, and envy.   Pride, from the idea that these skinny Asians break stereotypes of big eaters.  Disgust, from just thinking about how much they eat.  Envy, from the fact that these three are still so skinny after eating so much food!  I can gain a pound by just looking at a cheesecake.

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  • I fit into the "small Asian with big appetite" category. In fact, I need to eat that much in order to maintain my borderline marginally normal weight BMI. So watch out farm animals, when I'm hungry enough to eat a horse, I will do so.
  • suzieleung
    Great post, Jeff! Loved it so much, we decided to blog about it, too! :)

    http://absolutelyfobulous.com/2009/11/01/tiny-a...
  • JC
    Takeru Kobayashi is sent by the Japanese TV show "TV Champion" to kick American arses in fast eating because he couldn't make it as the #1 big eater in Japan at the time (He lost to Giant Shirada in 2001). Japan has a number of big eaters (not necessarily fast eaters, which is the competition in the US) promoted by TV Champion for over 10 year, and almost all of them are tiny men and women. On Japanese TV there are specials such as 100 men vs 10 - 100 hungry manly-man tag team versus 10 big eater tag team. And yes the big eaters won. The most famous big eater in Japan now is Gyaru Sone, a tiny ex-chef of a 109-gyaru who once an sundae as tall as her. Big eating shows was banned in Japan for a few years when some kids almost killed themselves trying to emulate them; but I think the ban has been lifted because I see Gyaru Sone everywhere on J-TV nowdays.

    I guess the point is - Big Eaters are usually small in statue, and Asians dominate so much in this field that the loser of a TV show came to the US and dominated Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest for years.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Champion
    http://blog.watanabepro.co.jp/gyarusone/index.html

    *it's so sad that the English entry in Wikipedia about TV Champion is so short. It's one of the most entertaining show ever created by mankind.
  • johnklin
    Interview with Sonya Thomas and Juliet Lee
    July 4th, 2009
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqxXAorAEmw
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