Competitive eating, or speed eating, is a sport that us all about food.

Success in the sport

requires efficiency, which is a combination of capacity – eating a lot of food – and speed
eating it fast. Contest are typically eight to 10 minutes long, with the person consuming
the most food declared the winner. Current professional eating contest can offer $10,000
or more prize money.

Traditionally, eating contest (usually involving children eating pies) were country fair
events. The recent rise in popularity of competitive eating is largely due to the growth
over almost 100 years of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, an annual Independence
Day tradition at Coney Island, New York. The event generates enormous media attention
and has been aired on major sport channels. Many commentators believe that Nathans’s
contest has had a direct impact on the development of competitive eating as a sport.
Surprisingly, restaurant hosts do not always make a lot of money on contest days, as
contestants tend to eat more food than their entry fee would purchase. Money is only
part of the reason that contests primarily use fast food, though.
“Restaurants would go out of business with a steak eating contest”, says Peter “Wingman”
McDermont, prize-winning speed eater. “Hot dogs and wings are familiar and do not
break the bank”.

But what is it that motivates contestants like Peter to eat those hot dogs and wings? “A lot
of speed eaters I know were never big athletes in high school and are just looking for a
really fast way to get on TV. I started out that way,” he said. “But now I definitely make
sure to stay healthy. This is not something an unhealthy person want to start doing”
McDermott appreciates that he can have a life outside his “sport,” as “the competition is
over almost as soon as it started. Eaters can compete and still have most of the day left.
Speed eating is increasingly regulated by the kinds of organizations familiar in much bigger
sports, like football or hockey. The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE)
hosts more than 100 “Major League Eating” (MLE) events worldwide each year and first
established eating as a sport in the 1990s.

IFOCE licenses MLE t-shirts and other products and features the most current videos of
contest and competitors. IFOCE is also the only organization with extensive safety
regulations for events. A smaller organized league, the Association of Independent
Competitive Eaters (AICE), established by competitive eater Arnie “Chowhound”
Chapman, also holds contest. Chapman was a former IFOCE member who left to form an
independent league after disputes over IFOCE contracts.

Main purpose
Two reasons popularity of the contest
Two main reasons