Competitive Books on Competitive Eating

[Mulboyne]

Ryan Nerz has written an account of competitive eating contests in the US including, of course, Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi who has triumphed at Nathan's hot dog contest. Nerz discussed his book on The Daily Show where he explained why thin people have an advantage over fat people in these competitions. If you click on the Amazon link, you'll notice that Jason Fagone also has a book out covering much the same ground: "Horsemen of the Esophagus : Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream" . That seems like a better title. Interestingly, many of the reviewers of both books seem to regard eating contests as uniquely American. Nerz has slightly more on the Japan angle - one of his previous books was an official character guide to Digimon so he has otaku credentials.

[Mulboyne]

It seems that one of America's eating champions Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas is Korean. she emigrated to America and worked as a manager at the Burger King on Andrews Air Force Base (not Iwakuni, which would have been more appropriate).