Competitive Esus: The Art of eating.

In 1878’s Toronto a shop owner asked himself “Wouldn’t it be nice to watch people eat a lot of food.” So, he made it happen. The world’s first pie eating contest. And hence the sport of competitive eating was born. By the 21st century, it grew in popularity, to the point that there are entire organizations dedicated to organizing these events, such as ‘All Pro Eating’, ‘IFOCE’. Like sports, Competitive eating too requires vigorous training, like drinking absurd amounts of water and being tall, thus having a long stomach. The current reigning champion is ‘Joey Chestnut’ whose name complements his profession beautifully.

The Beginning

The first ever pie eating contest took place in the land of maple leaf ‘Canada’. When Albert Piddington pie shop owner asked himself “Wouldn’t is it be nice to see people eat absurd amounts of food in the name of charity?” and so he made it happen. And the winning price was “A handsomely bound book”. So with such high stakes an absurd but unknown amount of pies were eaten. With that the trend took of and eating contests became common sights in country fairs across the country and then spread to the United Nations

The Contests

With the recent surge of popularity thanks to in part due to social media and in part charity events has led to many notable and regular competitive grounds to pop up. The most notable of them being Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. It began on July 4, 1916 and has been held every year since. Thus, to manage these competitions certain organizations have been formed, such as Major League Eating (MLE) responsible for organizing 70 to 80 competitions every year. Some other organizations are ‘All Pro Eating’, ‘IFOCE’. These organizations usually offer a monetary price up to $20,000 with the highest ever being $50,000 at 2017 Philadelphia Wing Bowl

The competitors

Joey Chestnut, Takeru Kobayashi are some of the most notable names in the present time. With Joey Chestnut winning 16 of Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest since 2007. The female reigning champion as of 2023 is Miki Sudo, wining 9 times since 2014. To win these contests the participants have to go through rigorous training which, I were to, boils down to drinking a lot of water and being tall. Drinking large amounts of water helps to stretch the stomach walls and enlarging it and being tall results having a long stomach.

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