Japanese competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi, a six-time winner of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, has announced he is retiring from the sport due to growing health concerns.
“I’ve decided to retire from competitive eating, something I’ve been doing for the last 20 years,” Kobayashi, 46, announced in the Netflix documentary “Hack Your Health – The Secrets of Your Gut,” which explores how food, the digestive system and gut health relate to overall health.
Decades of overeating for sports have left Kobayashi with no appetite or sense of fullness, and his wife, Maggie James, says he sometimes goes days without eating.
Better health than being fat: Should competitive eating contestants be considered athletes?
James said her husband felt his body was “broken.”
“I hear people who say they’re hungry, but after they eat they look so happy. I envy those people because I don’t feel hungry anymore,” Kobayashi said in the documentary. “I want to live a long life and be healthy.”
Kobayashi Takeru: “I’ve eaten 10,000 hot dogs so far”
Kobayashi began his career in 2000 when he appeared on the Japanese variety show TV Champion, where he ate 16 bowls of ramen in one hour. In 2001, he set a world record at the Nathan’s Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest, held annually on the Fourth of July, by eating 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes (the previous record was 25⅛ hot dogs). He won the Mustard Yellow belt for six consecutive years from 2001 to 2006.
“I think I’ve eaten at least 10,000 hot dogs since the start of my career,” Kobayashi says in the film.
Kobayashi doesn’t just eat hot dogs: He’s held world records for a variety of foods throughout his career, from buffalo wings, lobster rolls, and beef brains to burgers, tacos, pizza, and the list goes on.
“I’m Japanese, but I’ve been eating like an American, and I think that’s what’s ruined my body,” he says. “I’m a big foodie, so I end up overeating. When I overeat, I can’t fully enjoy the taste and smell of food. I ignore my body’s signals, like when I’m full.”
Kobayashi said he had been stuffing his stomach with food for months to prepare for the competition.
“You gradually increase the amount of food you eat to build up your abs, and then you have to make sure you drop it all so that body fat doesn’t weigh down your belly bulge during the match. I start this training about two months before a big match,” he said in 2004.
Competitive eating affects Kobayashi’s brain
During the documentary, Kobayashi underwent multiple tests to diagnose his loss of appetite and sense of smell. Doctors and scientists determined that Kobayashi’s chronic overeating affected his nervous system, training his brain to believe he was in competition or eating highly processed foods, even when he was away from competition.
“I loved cake and curry when I was a child, but now I don’t feel any joy in eating,” he says. “It’s scary to think that the brain and the gut are so closely connected. I want to be more careful about what I eat.”
Although Kobayashi will no longer compete in the July 4th contest at Coney Island, he’s not quitting hot dogs altogether. He said he’s on a mission to “make a healthier hot dog” using traditional Japanese ingredients.
“What has had more of an impact on me than competitive eating is hot dogs,” he says. “I’m nervous about what my next step will be, but I’m excited for the future.”
