Competitive Eater Takeru Kobayashi is Not Hungry Anymore – IOTW Report

Competitive Eater Takeru Kobayashi is Not Hungry Anymore

Takeru Kobayashi, winner of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest six times, has declared his retirement from competitive eating to encourage others to “live a healthy and long life.” In the Netflix documentary “Hack Your Health—The Secrets of Your Gut,” Kobayashi voiced his worries about the harm that highly processed foods had inflicted on him.

One of his worries is that the 46-year-old’s appetite and sense of smell have diminished. He hopes that by retiring from competitive eating, he will be able to undo the harm it did to his body.
The New York Post adds that the 46-year-old Kobayashi’s brain scans were examined in the documentary, and the results showed that regions of the brain associated with nausea are triggered whenever the 46-year-old sees food. “Your brain still thinks you’re in a competition, in a state of eating highly processed food,” neuropsychologist Annie Gupta told him.

Although hot dogs were his specialty, Kobayashi has competed in eating challenges, including pizza and hamburgers, on more than one occasion. Playing the role of “TV Champion” on the Japanese reality program in 2000 was the turning point in his career. His impressive eating habits were on display when he devoured 60 sushi platters, 2.7 kg of potatoes, and 16 bowls of ramen all in one sitting on that episode.

Kobayashi expressed concern that ignoring his hunger cues may have caused him to make a mistake. But he’s not completely given up food just yet; he’s hoping to make the most of this setback by developing a hot dog recipe that uses healthier components.

21 Comments on Competitive Eater Takeru Kobayashi is Not Hungry Anymore

  1. If it has healthier components, it is NOT, by definition, a hot dog!

    Although it is always somewhat impressive to be the best in the world at something, competitive eating is something I never understood.

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  2. How do you make a healthier hotdog? Make it out of textured soy protein, yuck. I have never understood all the gluttony involved in these over- eating contests. And we’re only about 6 or 7 weeks away from Joey Chestnut eating another 70 hotdogs in less than 10 minutes. I doubt if I eat 70 hotdogs in a year. I’m waiting for the inevitable barfarama that could occur anytime one of these pigfests is broadcast, someday one of these idiots is going to lose it and puke his or her guts up on live TV. Or go full Mr. Creosote and Lardass from Stand By Me combined.

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  3. Competitive eating… at some point it’s gonna catch up to him. As the body get older the threshold for tolerance is gonna get crossed and somebody’s gonna have to give St. Peter a pretty stupid explanation –
    St. Peter: “You did what???

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