People will turn anything into a competition. If eating a lot of food in a hurry is something you do better than other people, you may as well show off, especially if there is a wager or prize money involved. And like any human contest, people will flock to see it happen. A notorious eater of the Roman Empire, Clodius Albinus, was documented to consume 500 dried figs plus a host of other fruits, most likely to show off his talents. Several medieval men made a living by wagering on how much they could eat, and made even more money by charging admission to watch.
The ethics of overeating and making a contest of it are arguable. Eating is something all of us do every day, and to make it worth watching, it must be extreme. Pushing the limits of one's body for a prize or a reputation is not safe. And in parts of our history, poor children were recruited into eating contests for the entertainment of the well-to-do. Today, competitive eating is regarded as a sport, regulated by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Read how competitive eating got this way at Jstor Daily. -via Strange Company
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