A 24-year-old Chinese woman has died during a live broadcast of an eating challenge she took up. The challenge involved participants eating for more than 10 hours every day, according to international media reports.
According to Creaders.net, Pan Xiaoting’s autopsy results revealed her stomach was filled with undigested food and that her abdomen was severely deformed.
Xiaoting ate over 10 kg of food for dinner and also tried odd dishes. Despite her parents warning her of repercussions, the social media influencer continued overeating.
Xiaoting, who worked as a waitress, started eating live on social media after being inspired by a friend.
Initially, she would eat alone in front of a camera and later garnered a massive fan following. Reports said her fans started giving her rewards during her live broadcasts.
According to Hankyung.com, Xiaoting was hospitalised due to gastrointestinal bleeding after she took up the challenge. However, she started a new round of binge-eating the day after she was discharged. She died on July 14.
The Daily Mail had also reported that Pan Xiaoting died last week from a suspected stomach tear while gorging on 10kg (22lbs) of food, including what appeared to be chocolate cake.
Autopsy results revealed that her stomach had become severely deformed and filled with undigested food, suggesting that her stomach could have burst, causing stomach acid and food to leak into her abdomen.
Xiaoting - who was morbidly obese - became famous in China for her Mukbang live streams, a trend which sees people eat huge amounts of food, usually very unhealthy food on camera. It originated in South Korea.
Now doctors are warning influencers in the West could be next - with several content creators in the US becoming extremely popular.
China has such an all-out ban on mukbang videos, but it has not stopped content creators from live-streaming their binges.
Pan Xiaoting live-streamed her 10-hour food marathon on July 14 when she collapsed. Viewers reportedly tried to provide remote help, but it wasn’t enough.
She had recently been hospitalized with stomach bleeding though it’s not clear how long ago she was discharged.
When she died, most of the food she ate had not been digested yet and was sitting in her stomach.
Having a history of stomach bleeding greatly increases one’s risk of experiencing other severe GI issues down the line.
Details about her death coming out of China are slim, but there are several ways in which consuming vast quantities of food nonstop could kill someone.
Eating that much food can cause the stomach to rupture or tear due to excessive stretching.
Eating a massive amount of food can also lead the stomach to expand and become distended, which can compress surrounding blood vessels as well as put pressure on the heart, raising the risk of cardiac arrest.
It can also cause a severe electrolyte imbalance, which can cause severe cardiac effects.
The appeal of mukbang videos originally began as a way to make people feel less lonely, especially when eating alone.
Among the most well-known content creators is Nicholas Perry, better known as Nikocado Avocado to his 3.8millon YouTube followers.
The 32-year-old, from Pennsylvania, has become a multi-millionaire by filming himself binge-eating ungodly amounts of food and documenting his weight-gain journey in unhinged videos.
While he began filming himself consuming vast amounts of ramen or a stack of pancakes at IHOP in 2017, he now often eats more than 10,000 calories live on camera in videos with such titles as 'I hate myself, Goodbye YouTube & life' and 'Celebrating Our 700 Pound Milestone' which features a friend.
He currently weighs a reported 350 pounds, having begun his journey in around 2016 weighing around 160 pounds.
Another YouTube sensation is Hungry Fat Chick, or Candy Godiva, who has become a fixture in the mukbang video scene with more than 280,000 YouTube subscribers. Her net worth hovers around $1 million.
But in 2021, a 20-year-old man in Hyderabad died of eating too much of his favourite strawberry ice cream. According to reports, Sai Sampath ordered a 1-litre pack of the ice cream and ate more than 90 per cent of it before around midnight.
Around 3 am, he experienced breathlessness and began vomiting. He was found dead by ambulance staff who came to rush him to hospital.
Earlier, a Filipino content creator died from a haemorrhagic stroke after he ate a large amount of fried chicken and rice for his videos.
