Competitive eating

What is it with men and being the best even at mundane of things? From resisting to asking for directions when lost, to showing how fast they can drive on a windy road, to showing how many hot dogs they can eat in the least amount of time. Men never fail me in proving how daft they can be. Every year they have hot dog and hamburger eating contest. This past weekend, Joey Chestnut proved that he could eat 68 hotdogs in ten minutes in Nathan’s International Hot Dog Contest held in New York. He won the championship this year by dethroning Takeru Kobayashi from last year who could eat 64 ½ hotdogs in the same time.


For the ten minutes that Joey put in to eat those hotdogs, he walked home with $20,000 to eat hotdogs for the rest of the year. Competition that is upcoming this September will pay out as much as $100,000. Hamburger chains like Krystal and White Castle (remember this one from the movie ‘Harold and Kumar’?) put in a lot of money towards such contests. While their idea is to promote their food, it looks dumb, to have eating contests, where food is wasted a lot, while there are many who are hungry waiting to be fed.


There are many restaurants around the D.C. metro area and around the U.S. where if you finish a one-pound burger or more, they would take your picture and put it on their walls of fame. How sweet? One can go around and say that they are a champ at eating of all other things possible like what we witnessed this weekend in the tennis world. Is it then surprising to see a report on how US is leading in obesity? Only men can make a sport out of frivolous activities and then they nitpick as to why women carry big handbags only to search for their lipsticks in the ocean of materials inside their bags.