Japanese Boom in Competitive Eating vs. Growing Concerns for Eco-Friendliness

Variety shows are a genre to itself in Japanese TV. Comedians, actors, and other TV personalities get together on-stage, crack jokes, watch videos, and talk about their life experiences. Sometimes, these personalities are sent to various restaurants, shops, and other locations, where they interact with locals, shop, eat, and talk so that the audience get to know the personalities, learn some new knowledge, and find out about new destinations to hang out on the weekends in their hometowns and faraway cities. Sometimes, the shows are cringeworthy and xenophobic, but they continue to thrive and evolve.

One of the more notable evolutions of the variety show genre in recent years is the growing prevalence of shows featuring a big amount of eating (爆食) and shopping (爆買い) in a short time. A growing group of TV personalities known for being able to eat a lot (大食いタレント) despite looking slim and cute, has become more regularly featured on variety shows, much to the delight of their growing fanbase. Similarly, places that are known for big volumes, particularly the likes of bulk discounters like Costco, have become frequent settings for shows about those who buy a lot, cook a lot, and then eat a lot.

Of course, the idea of competitive eating is not new in Japan. Takeru Kobayashi is (in)famous for making binge-eating of hotdogs popular both in and outside Japan. And even on TV, the new up-and-coming binge-eaters face off against an aging group of middle-aged ones who were famous from a previous boom in on-screening big eating. The fact that the previous generation of "eating celebrities" had lost their spotlight and came back today shows that the popularity of competitive eating is almost cyclical, finding and then losing a generation of audience every decade or so.

But in many ways, the current boom in heavy eating on TV is as ill-timed as it can get from an ethical standpoint. A growing global chorus in fending off climate change has led to more soul-searching for what each individual can do in his or her daily life to reduce carbon footprint. One way that many, both on and off mainstream media, talked about is to change one's diet. That means less emission-heavy meats and processed foods, and generally, reduce the volume of intake in favor of achieving efficiency in producing more calories in nutritious foods. 

Competitive eating goes entirely against this principle, especially when shown on TV. Producers of variety shows assume (often correctly) that the audience is more delighted when watching slim people down several kilograms of high-calorie foods, consisting of big slabs of meat paired with plenty of carbs soaked in oil and fats. The prospect of seeing petit women, in particular, shoving these foods into their mouths without any display of hesitance may even be arousing in some deviated ways. Their behaviors can by no means be interpreted as environmentally sustainable when scaled to the masses.

Then the question becomes just why Japanese TV insists on flaring the popularity of heavy eating despite the growing public sentiment around the world calling for more restraint in heavy diets? Part of the reason may be a need to project a sense of plenty amidst stagnant wages and reduced ambitions among the average Japanese worker. As the average worker continues to struggle to make ends meet, retailers and manufacturers are trying to make products more affordable with smaller sizes. Such a harsh economic reality has driven a growing perception that bigger is not just more expensive but more luxurious.

Perhaps just as important is an implicit, subliminal message by those with economic power to encourage more dining out and binge shopping. The restaurants and malls hosting these variety shows no doubt want more customers who can buy and eat large volumes in one sitting. By projecting heavy-eaters and heavy-shoppers are glamorous and even heroic, the shows and their sponsors seek to encourage the general public to emulate the behaviors of the TV personalities by saving less and consuming more. Making binge-eating and shopping regular activities, then, can really stimulate the economy.

However, the jury is still out on whether more on-screen consumption leads to more off-screen ones. Given that like people elsewhere, the declining audience for TVs, especially the youths, in Japan, will surely reduce the effectiveness of the message as ones with more capacity for consumption. And one should not doubt the growing support for an eco-friendly lifestyle to quickly make the idea of competitive eating, however staged, socially unpalatable, or even taboo. The current popularity of binge-eating and shopping may die down again, this time permanently, as the message of sustainability becomes more commonplace.