A dangerous new online trend claimed the life of its first star this week.
Pan Xiaoting collapsed and diedat 24 while livestreaming a 'mukbang' video, a binge-eating trend that has exploded in popularity since around 2016
Her autopsy showed she had undigested of food in her stomach after eating a reported 10kg of food - the equivalent of 22 pounds of food including cake and fried chicken -- over several hours.
Yet some of the most popular mukbangers are in the US, with upwards of four million regular subscribers and viewers.
Doctors warn that every time they carry out one of these eating marathons, they drive their heart rates up, breathing becomes heavier as the body's demand for oxygen increases, and their blood pressure and insulin levels rise.
When YouTuber Nikocado Avocado began his career around 2016, he weighed in at a health 160 pounds. Now, he has sleep apnea and is obese
Mukbang started in Korea, and comes from the words for 'eating' and 'broadcast'. From the trend's inception, a few users in both the US and Korea began garnering floods of views and soon began making money off them through advertising and sponsorships.
In the past decade, an entire cottage industry of on-camera eaters has emerged. The number of content creaters has ballooned to just a few to hundreds, many of the most popular being from the US.
The most well known among them includeBethany Gaskin, who gained widespread popularityfor her seafood boil mukbangs, Nikocado Avocado,known for his dramatic and often controversial content, which includes eating large amounts of food while sharing personal stories and odd antics,Veronica Wang, who tells stories while sampling a range of cuisines, and HungryFatChick, also known as Candy Godiva, whose videos typically feature her eating large quantities of food while chatting with her viewers.
The filmed binge-eaters have earned millions. Nikocado Avocado, or Nicholas Perry, has a net worth of about 3.8 million. His follower count exceeds 3.5 million.
He went from a svelte 160 pounds in 2016 to around 350 pounds currently. He suffers from obesity and breathing problems, and is often shown in his videos wearing a sleep mask.
Doctors warned that these content creators, as they become accustomed to eating larger and larger quanities of fried and processed foods, constantly need to eat more and more to get the same feeling of satisfaction and fullness that they felt during their first binge.
This leads to a over-eaters on camera, and their viewers as well, to constantly feel they need to raise the stakes and eat more and more, raising their risk of stomach, intestinal, and liver damage, as well as a range of chronic diseases.
They also have a financial incentive to consistently raise the bar, with promises of earning tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars per video.
In addition to the death of Pan Xiaoting, reportedly due to a stomach deformation and rupture, US mukbangers have also died amid their challenges.
Taylor Claydorm, who posted using the username @waffler69 on TikTok and over 1.7 million followers and 32.8 million likes of him eating bizarre foods, such as canned cheeseburgers and expired novelty foods, suffered a fatal heart attack last year.
The stomach is meant to hold 27 to 50 ounces of food at a time when fully expanded.
In addition to drastically raising one’s risk of obesity and, therefore, heart disease and diabetes, consuming that much food in a single sitting can cause the stomach to become distended and rupture, sending food into the abdomen.
Doctors have told DailyMail.com that the extreme eating videos made by thousands of internet users around the world is harmful to both the content creator and the viewer, who becomes more susceptible to depressionand feelings of loneliness from keeping up with videos.
Nikocado Avocado [shown] has more than 3.8 million subscribers on his mukbang YouTube page
Mukbang became a sensation in Korea years ago and spilled over to the US. Now, one could find thousands of content creators from around the globe, including the US, Denmark, and Thailand.
The content can be especially harmful to people with an already strained relationship with food or an eating disorder. The displays of overeating normalizes and even glamorizes gluttony and binging disorders.
Dr Shauna Levy, an obesity medicine specialist at Tulane University, told DailyMail.com that the risks of obesity over time become compounded with every mukbang video.
Among the most notable examples of Nicholas Perry, or Nikocado Avocado as he’s known to his 2.8 million subscribers. The YouTubers went from a healthy 160 pounds in 2016 to about 350 pounds in 2024.
Dr Levy said: ‘I think mukbang, for eating higher fat processed foods have health consequences all on their own, elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol.
‘It’s always ok to indulge once and again but more frequent indulgences can lead to negative consequences to health.’
Candy Godiva, a famous mukbanger, has a net worth of around a million dollars from her popular videos in which she eats heaping portions of ramen noodles and fast foods. Photo from YouTube
There is also a financial incentive. While many may start out making videos for fun, it becomes clear relatively quickly that the trend is highly lucrative, with some YouTubers earning millions per year.
But while some start their mukbang career eating moderately healthy foods or foods in near-acceptable portions, they soon learn that the more extreme their content, the more views they earn.
They may also feel like they need more food to feel full as the stomach expands over time. The reward from eating delicious food becomes ever more challenging to resist, leading someone to binge for emotional relief.
People get a similar reward when they watch these videos and, over time, the brain becomes desensitized to content and craves more extreme binges.
Eating an excessive amount of food in a single sitting can cause the stomach to balloon to a dangerous size, a condition known as acute gastric dilation.
The above graph of Google search trends shows that interest in mukbang videos has remained high for years and appear to becoming even more popular than ever before
Dr Zak Uddin, a family medicine practitioner, told DailyMail.com: 'Eating massive amounts can result in alteration in your blood electrolytes that can make you acutely unwell.
'There is also the pressure on the stomach and gullet when consuming this much. Participants may vomit, choke on the vomit, and in worse case scenario, inhale it into their lungs.'
Kim Shapira, a dietitian based in Los Angeles, likened the digestive tract to the cardboard cylider paper towel roll, which has a thin lining.
She said: 'When we don’t fully digest our food, which means when we don’t fully chew our food or have saliva mixing with digestive enzymes, we’re risking an inflammatory response just based on digestion.'
Blood vessels and other organs become compressed, causing organs to have to work harder to break food down.
The stomach, small intestine, and pancreas release digestive enzymes to break down food and hydrochloric acid. When a person overeats, that acid might back up into the esophagus, causing heartburn.
Ms Shapira added that too much food in the stomach, and the slurry that it becomes in the intestines, puts pressure on that thin lining of the digestive tract.
'When you think about that cardboard, that internal digestive tract, that’s technically outside of your body, what’s in there hasn’t gone into the bloodstream.
'But when you’re pushing, gorging, having an inflammatory response, breaking down the mucosal lining, you’re allowing that food to enter your bloodstream.Now you’re going to see other problems.'
Metabolism also speeds up to break down that mountain of calories, forcing the heart to work harder.
The stomach may also tear, causing stomach contents to seep into the abdomen.
It also allows bacteria to enter, potentially leading to inflammation in the tissue that lines the abdomen and infection.
Mukbang videos from Hungry Fat Chick [shown] have exploded in popularity since 2016, when the trend first began in South Korea. Photo from Youtube
Trisha Paytas launched her career with mukbang videos on YouTube, were she'd eat heaping portions of pizza and fried foods. Photo from her YouTube page
With some exceptions, many mukbangers are still thin and fit despite the number of calories they consume, a possible reflection of a certain gene that makes someone predisposed to being thin.
Doctors have found a ‘skinny gene’ that gives people resistance to weight gain, possibly playing a role in people’s ability to chow down on mountains of fast food and pizza.
Dr Levy said: ‘In general it’s based on your baseline genetics; how eating excess calories affects your body. People with genetic fitness may be less susceptible to obesity.’
Obesity has become a significant public health issue in the US, affecting a staggering 40 percent of Americans.
A combination of increasingly sedentary lifestyles and poor diets rich in processed foods are believed to be the primary contributors, with trends showing that the rate of obesity is likely to rise.
Overeating to such an extreme extent can cause tears in the mucous membrane at the junction of the stomach and esophagus, known as Mallory-Weiss tears, which can lead to bleeding.
Dr Levy said: ‘It’s kind of gross sometimes to see people using food that way for entertainment,’ adding that the videos and people who make them ‘in their own way can continue to cause harm to people.’
It’s not just the content creator who runs the risk of severe chronic health outcomes. Viewers are not spared, especially those with a predisposition to obesity or existing obesity.
Many may feel less lonely when watching people eat. The trend may lead viewers to overeat, too.
A content creator who eats anything they want and also has a rare genetic mutation that makes them more likely to keep weight off could discourage heavier viewers looking to lose weight.
Dr Levy said: ‘People who are eating calories in excess but remain thin, people with obesity might find that discouraging, like what are they doing outside of these videos, and how can they sit around and eat all day and here I am on an 800 calorie diet and not losing weight at all.
‘It could exacerbate feelings of anxiety and depression, especially with someone with obesity.’
Dr Uddin added: 'Ultimately any and all "challenges", that may cause you physical and or mental harm as a result should be discouraged.'
