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Keven Moore: Leave the All You Can Eat contests to the professionals; your life may depend on it


I have been working as a safety and risk management professional for over 30 years now and just about the time I get to the point where I think I have seen and heard everything; I am then surprised by a new occupational hazard or risk exposure.

As I was reading through some industry-related articles this week I ran across an article where the family of a 41-year-old man who had died after choking during an amateur taco eating contest is now suing the organizers of the event.

Keven Moore works in risk management services. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky, a master’s from Eastern Kentucky University and 25-plus years of experience in the safety and insurance profession. He is also an expert witness. He lives in Lexington with his family and works out of both Lexington and Northern Kentucky. Keven can be reached at kmoore@roeding.com

After reading this, I was quickly reminded of some eating and drinking contests that I may or may not have participated in back in my youthful past, but little did I know the life-threatening hazards I had faced until I had read that article.

I was reminded of a time when I was in college working for a larger mall department store as a loss prevention rep where it was my job to catch and apprehend shoplifters. On this particularly hot summer day, it was at shift change and there was a total of four of us in the camera room, and somebody challenged the rest of us to a Burger King Whopper eating contest.

Once the competition was over, all four of us had eaten a total of 4 Whoopers and we all thought we were going to die, as we had each morphed into Jabba the Hutt. But it so happened 5 minutes after this unofficial competition had ended, I witnessed a guy on our security cameras steal 6 pairs of women’s Jordache jeans ($100 each making it a felony) and walking towards one of the exits.

When we approached him outside the store, he decided to take his chances with all four of us and he took off running. We all looked at each other in total disbelief trying to decide who was going to go get him, and then after about 3 seconds of staring at one another, we all took off after him. Being weighed down by our recent competition, it took at least ½ the length of the mall parking lot for the Whooper brigade to catch and tackle him. We all ended up in a heap with road rash from the asphalt tackle, but that paled in comparison to my sudden need to throw up from the ill-timed foot pursuit end.

The moral of my story is if you ever consider entering an “all you can eat contest” you should leave it to the professionals.

The man who died during an amateur taco eating contest in August 2019 at Chukchansi Park during a Fresno Grizzlies minor league baseball game had never previously taken part in an “All You Can Eat” contest, and Fresno Sports and Events LLC, owner of the Grizzlies is now being sued for negligence.

The contestant passed out minutes into the competition and the staff rushed onstage to assist him and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation before calling 911. He was taken to hospital and was later pronounced dead. The Fresno County Coroner’s Office said that Hutchings died of choking, and the lawsuit states that Hutchings had both chewed and unchewed tacos blocking his respiratory system.

According to the lawsuit, the contestant was not made aware of the risks and dangers involved in an eating competition. The lawsuit also stated that the availability of alcohol during the event further increased the dangers and risks of the event.

President Derrick Frank of the Grizzlies stated in an email that “we won’t be making any public comments,” on the incident.

The fact of the matter is that a competitive eating contest is truly a professional sport.

Yes, you heard me correctly and it is managed by “Major League Eating” (MLE) which oversees all professional eating contests and was developed in 1997 because of their increasing popularity. The sport’s governing body, the International Federation of Competitive Eating, helps sponsors to develop, publicize, and execute world-class eating events in all varieties of food disciplines.

MLE-sanctioned eating contests provide dramatic audience entertainment and offer an unparalleled platform for media exposure. MLE holds approximately 70 events annually, and they help generate billions of consumer impressions annually. Their contest has aired on ESPN, MTV, the Travel Channel, Spike TV, Discovery, and the Bio channel. The ESPN telecast of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest has secured over a million live viewers for 10 consecutive years.

The sport has it very own heroes and food contests ranging from waffles, burger, wings, jalapeno popper, crab cakes, cow brains, oysters, …etc. The list is endless, and the records can be found here.

There are plenty of competitive eating throughout the United States, and Forbes estimated that there is $400,000 to $500,000 in prize money up for grabs on the pro circuit each year. Many of these competitors have made additional earnings from endorsements and YouTube.

Many professional competitive eaters undergo rigorous personal training to increase their stomach capacity and eating speed with various foods. Stomach elasticity is usually considered the key to eating success, and competitors commonly train by drinking large amounts of water over a short time to stretch out the stomach.

Others combine the consumption of water with large quantities of low-calorie foods such as vegetables or salads. Some eaters chew large amounts of gum to build jaw strength. Ironically, maintaining low body fat percentages is thought to be helpful in competitive eating.

Retired competitive eater Ed “Cookie” Jarvis trained by consuming entire heads of boiled cabbage followed by drinking up to two gallons of water every day for two weeks before a contest. Due to the risks involved with training alone or without emergency medical supervision, the IFOCE actively discourages training of any sort.

Negative health effects of competitive eating include delaying stomach emptying, aspiration, pneumonia, perforation of the stomach, Boerhaave syndrome, and obesity. Other medical professionals contend that binge eating can cause stomach perforations in those with ulcers and gulping large quantities of water during training can lead to water intoxication, a condition caused by diluted electrolytes in the blood. Long-term effects of delayed stomach emptying include chronic indigestion, nausea, and vomiting.

Discomfort following an event is common with nausea, heartburn, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea. People may also use laxatives or force themselves to vomit following the event, with associated risks.

Death is a very real possibility even for these professionals and most occur because of choking.

• In 2012, a Florida man entered the Midnight Madness Bug-eating Competition in hopes of winning a python when he fell violently ill and died, according to reports. After chowing down on 60 grams of mealworms, 35 three-inch-long ‘super worms,’ and a bucket of cockroaches, he collapsed and was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. His death was caused by asphyxia “due to choking and aspiration of gastric contents.

• On July 4th, 2014, a 47-year-old South Dakota native was celebrating Independence Day by participating in a hot dog eating competition when he choked and lost consciousness. Paramedics were called in to perform CPR he was rushed to the hospital where he died shortly after.

• At a Sacred Heart University event in April 2017, a 20-year-old female student died as a result of a pancake eating contest. She died by choking.

This ritual occurs all throughout the world and the internet is filled with stories of many other people choking and dying.

In the US choking is the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury death, according to the National Safety Council. That is prior accident data for me to confidently recommend that if you find yourself at a festival or fair, that you do not ask somebody to hold your beer and enter into one of these “All You Can Eat Contest.” Just leave it to the professionals.

If you are an event coordinator and somebody suggests holding one of the contests, I would also strongly recommend that you avoid it because of the liability exposure. But if you or somebody else insist, make sure that you have paramedics present and that you get with your commercial insurance broker, to retain a hefty liability insurance policy, because a waiver is not going to protect the entity holding the event.

Be Safe My Friends


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