Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest has built quite the following over the years. So much so that ESPN renewed its contract with Major League Eating to broadcast the annual competition through 2024.
Every July 4, hundreds of people fill Coney Island, New York and thousands more tune in on television to see how many hot dogs can be devoured. Defending American champion Joey Chestnut inhaled 61 wet dogs to keep the championship belt around his waist last year and unbelievably, that was eight less than his record of 69 that he scarfed down in the 2013 contest.
Can you imagine what 69 hot dogs look like—let alone feel like—in the stomach? Well, you don't have to imagine any more. ESPN Sport Science took liberty to investigate how 69 hot dogs look like in the human body, bringing in an anthropomorphic dummy, equipped with a hot dog stuffer, which serves as a plunger, to replicate the action of pushing down all those dogs.
Now, what you're about to see in the following video is rather gross, but it does show the science of major league eating. The average human being can stomach about 1 liter of food, before the nausea reflex kicks in.
Of course, Chestnut and his fellow competitive eaters have trained their bodies to ignore this reflex. The end result is competitive eaters can stomach four-plus liters of food, expanding their bellies to pack it in. This replication basically portrays a balloon ready to burst with food.
Chestnut himself estimates that he'll gain 22 pounds from this year's contest. Good lord!
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