Talk:Competitive eating

message: Is this really considered a sport as the article states? Is that not up for debate?
:Competitive eating takes training, discipline & is competitive, so it's similar, but the best way to deal with the controversy is to avoid the term sport. That's better than mentioning it and shooting it down.
It does not meet the definition of a sport so this word should be removedEggilicious (talk)
:There is more than one definition of sport, one of which is "competitive physical activity", which does apply to competitive eating.  The events are also televised on American sports stations, such as ESPN, and are typically covered in newscasts during the sports coverage.  Your bald assertion does not match fact. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:04, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: 2014 olympics 198.151.130.64 (talk) 01:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Training and discipline may be required, but then they are also required to fly a plane. It is competitive, but so is passing an exam. I think most people would struggle with the concept of glorified gluttony being regarded as a "sport". Why not call it a competitive pursuit instead.Royalcourtier (talk) 08:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: sport?

message: I deleted this because listing all types of foods would be like trying to eat a 10 pound steak. Previoussly there was just Nathans' (repeat), Matzo Balls, bananas & Krystals.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghosts&empties (talk • contribs) 
:That was a pretty good (and extensive) cleanup you did.  And I wholeheartedly agree with the deep-sixing of the "disciplines" section; that could (if properly maintained, which it certainly wasn't) turn into "list of foods that people eat".  Though now that I think about it, describing some of the major stops on the eating circuit (which could possibly be what that section was trying for in the first place) might be beneficial to the article.
:The one thing this article really needs is some citations in the "criticisms" section.  Citations for the medical paragraph should be findable, and the "you're debasing food" paragraph is full of weasel words, and frankly sounds like BS.  I'll put cite-needed tags there in just a minute, and do some googling for citations. — Wwagner 00:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disciplines of Competive Eating

message: The first paragraph reads:
The activity is most popular in the USA. [...] This contest has recently been completely dominated by Takeru Kobayashi, who has won it every year since 2001.
Doesn't anybody else see the bleeding inconsistancy that this article focuses on the American side of competitive eating, while it is much more well known (popular is never a good word to use) in Japan and the world champion is Japanese?  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  03:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias much?

message: I actually found a decent citation with some stuff about possible medical complications of competitive eating, which I've added.  It could be a stronger citation, but it's better than nothing.  As for the "some people consider..." CE to debase food and eating, a few news articles contain vaguely similar offhand comments, but nothing I'd say is authoritative.  That paragraph is unsupportably-vague, made-up filler.  I'd suggest changing that paragraph to something along the lines of:
:"With the levels of obesity in the US considered to be reaching almost epidemic levels(numbers should be findable), competitive eating can be seen to glorify overeating.(plenty of cites available)  It is worth noting, however, that many of the world's top gurgitators are by no means obese, and the top two, as of this writing (Kobayashi and Thomas), are often described as 'petite'.(lots of cites for this)"
The IFOCE has weight stats for almost all their top ranked eaters.  There are some big 'uns of course (Booker and Jarvis instantly come to mind, who both clock in at over 400), but a lot of those top folks sport a pretty average build.
I'll do a little cite finding, and put up something new in a day or two, unless there's objection. — Wwagner 05:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do. Any additons to this article would be great! Check out the new ref tag too. -Ravedave 05:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, that ref tag is pretty groovy!  So now we have references and a references section.  Into the big times! :)  I've also made the edit I suggested above.  As for authoritativness, I know there are not many books about CE (and I don't have easy access to any of those that do exist), but abcnews.com seems authoritative enough, and a few of the other web articles I referenced were published on multiple news sites (same byline, same text). — Wwagner 02:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ifoce should be a good place to look for references.-Ravedave 04:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations, or not 

message: Still shaking my head. Note, that this "competitions" are not listed in teh Guiness Book of World Records any longer (since fifteen years or so). In other places people are starving, just to have mentioned that.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.173.145.229 (talk • contribs) 
:People are starving in other places because of poverty, warfare, and geographic isolation, not because there is a net shortage of food in the world.--Daveswagon 20:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many people, especially children, drown every year--yet we glorify this tragedy by holding competitions where people repeatedly cross purpose-built artificial pools. For that matter, many more people die because they don't have access to clean water and we debase it by immersing competitors into the life-giving stuff made foul with chemical treatment. Tafinucane 18:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A bad joke, methinks 

message: Oops - this edit  started out as a simple revert, but ended up being a removal of the entire unsourced section and I forgot to have the edit summary reflect the final actual content of the edit. -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit summary and removal of trivia section 

message: I work with the company that runs the IFOCE, which created the sport of competitive eating. AICE is a knock-off organization. Someone from AICE went into this story and removed the link to the IFOCE under the References section and added a second link to the AICE site. We believe this is unethical move by people behind ACE, especially since the IFOCE has never attempted to do the same to AICE. We would appreciate some help in restoring the link to the IFOCE. I'm still figuring out the "dos" and "don'ts" of Wikipedia and am not exactly sure how to go in and do that to an existing article.Markdfaris (talk) 17:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ACE Unethical Edit 

message: Does anyone care that some actor called Ryan Reynolds (whohe?) wrote an article for the Huffington Post complaining about this sport? Is that encyclopaedic?
The medical dangers section cites one article on some lifestyle website called "Blisstree" which now 404s, an article on CNN, and a curious article on WebMD that seems to be basically some doctors saying there ought to be something wrong, but they can't find anything, except one broken jaw(!). The opinion of a medics is *not* the same as medical opinion.
I'd be inclined to delete the whole section, but not being a Wikipedian that would probably look like vandalism. Nonetheless, it appears to be just a way to weasel in some puritanical moralism about setting a bad example, kind of thing. You could argue that any sport is a waste when people in the world are starving (how much are we spending on the Olympics jamboree so that a few runners and jumpers can show off, when that money could go to the poor? etc etc).82.71.30.178 (talk) 03:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Criticisms" Section is lame. 

message: I've often thought that these competitors could suffer from fatty livers because of their over eating, just like what happens with ducks or geese in making foie gras. Sorry to see no discussion re it in the Dangers section. If anyone knows of any research/studies on the issue, adding them would be appreciated!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phantom in ca (talk • contribs) 22:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont think people who go to eating contests are doing it day in and day out.  THey may have calorie intake not much different than the average. —Soap— 18:42, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fatty Liver, like Foie gras? 

message: do they vomit later, when allowed to?  do they take laxatives, enemas?  or does all the food just go as normal?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.122.94 (talk) 20:16, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  not clear what eaters do after event 

message: We've all seen people get disqualified from conventional sporting events for taking supplementary bodybuilding hormones, i.e. "doping".  Could one perhaps get banned from an eating contest for ingesting tapeworms prior to the event?   —Soap— 17:57, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cheating 

message: I have been able to find, oddly enough, no mention at all on the Internet of the Root Sports South TV network. Maybe it was actually the Root Sports Southwest network. It seems reasonable enough, but I'm probably going to remove that bit since, well, I can't find any clue as to the existence of an entire TV network.
"The annual Krystal Square Off hamburger eating contest has been televised on ESPN and, in 2008, on the Root Sports South network."
--Anon423 (talk) 13:29, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference for Roots Sports South? 

message: What is the criteria for inclusion in the "Notable competitive eaters" list on this article? list of competitive eaters is ostensibly a list of notable competitive eaters, so as far as I can tell the inclusion criteria there are identical to the list on this page. So why were the specific individuals on this shortened list selected, and not others? ParticipantObserver (talk) 18:07, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. I've done some cleanup of that section and removed ones with no articles, however it could arguably be trimmed more with set criteria or even eliminated altogether. Jauerbackdude?/dude. 19:17, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

text: I've just gone ahead and removed the section altogether as it's problematic since it's so subjective on who from List of competitive eaters should be listed in both spots. Jauerbackdude?/dude. 15:48, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of notable competitive eaters