Australian man overcomes illness to eat 47 hotdogs in 10 minutes

Meet competitive eater James Webb. In the last year and half the 34-year-old has quit his job to enter food eating contests across Australia and America, earning money for eating lots of food very quickly.

The first contest he competed in, he ate 38 pancakes in one hour and broke the Australian record in Brisbane.

A few weeks later in Melbourne he ate 17 sausage sizzle sandwiches in three minutes, again breaking the record.

Soon after in Toowoomba, he finished a 3.5kg doughnut in under 20 minutes.

Last week he came third in New York’s famous Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, after eating 47 hotdogs in 10 minutes.

It’s an amazing feat for Mr Webb who has overcome childhood obesity to be able to play semi-professional soccer before a serious illness put him in hospital for 18 months.

He suffered Guillain-Barre syndrome, or GBS, an auto-immune disorder, when he was 27. GBS is a rare disease in which the body’s immune system attacks its nerves. It can cause paralysis, which means you can’t move your body anymore.

Mr Webb couldn’t move his body and had to use a ventilator because he couldn’t breathe. The doctors told him he would never walk again.

“Basically, I went to sleep one night a professional soccer player and woke up paralysed,” Mr Webb said.

He then developed cataracts, when the lens of the eye becomes cloudy, and he became blind and had to give up his soccer dream.

But thanks to a new form of treatment and eye surgery, he slowly regained his sight and taught himself how to walk and breathe without a ventilator.

Now Mr Webb is fit and healthy — he weighs 91kg with 10 per cent body fat — and goes to the gym everyday.

He eats about 15kg of food each day but isn’t overweight thanks to regular exercise.

He said a lot of people think competitive eaters must be very overweight, but this is a myth.

The world’s top 10 competitive eaters includes a professional powerlifter, a cyclist, an endurance runner and two professional bodybuilders.

His journey to becoming a competitive eater started after eating a 5kg hamburger, wedges, fries, onion rings, three cans of soft drink and a piece of cheesecake at a Cessnock restaurant. The burger was so big that 55 people had tried to eat it and failed.

Someone watching sent a video of the feat to the local newspaper who sent it to Channel 9 and the next morning he was woken by his mother wanting to know why he was on TV.

During lockdown he posted his feats on social media and when lockdown ended restaurants and cafes started paying him to eat their food.

In early 2022, America’s Major-league Eating (MLE) invited Mr Webb to compete in the US. He completed 26 food challenges and contests in 10 days and became a professional eater for a living.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• competitive: an activity where people compete against each other to see who is the best at it
• semi-professional: a sport that you are paid to play but not as a full-time job
• auto-immune: when your body’s immune system, which usually fights off illness, attacks the tissues and organs in your body instead
• ventilator: a machine that helps a person to breathe
• paralysed: not being able to move
• lens: the part of the eye that focuses on what you see
• regained: refers to getting something back after losing it
• powerlifter: someone who lifts heavy weights in contests
• endurance: to do something difficult for a long period of time, in this case, the ability to run long distances
• bodybuilders: someone who exercises to become muscular and strong
• feat: an achievement

EXTRA READING
The big cheese of extreme sport
Would you try this 3D-printed cheesecake?
Food for thought

QUICK QUIZ
1. How many hotdogs did Mr Webb eat to come third in Nathan’s hotdog eating contest on Coney Island?
2. How much food does he eat each day?
3. What illness did he get when he was 27?
4. How does he stop himself from becoming overweight?
5. What sport did he play before getting GBS?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Pre-contest routine
Write James’s possible pre-eating routine and activities on the day of a big competition. Think about things that might allow him to feel his best considering he needs to eat a lot in a short period of time.

Daily Routine on Eating Competition Day
Sleep times:
Morning:
Breakfast:
Snacks:
Lunch:
Exercise:
Mindfulness:

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical education, Personal and social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Do you think being a professional eater is a healthy and sustainable career?

List the Pros and Cons of being a professional eater for a living;
PROS
CONS

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical education, Personal and social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
A Unique Profession!
Imagine spending your life eating for money. But do you think he actually gets to enjoy the food he’s eating?

Write a letter to your parents or carers explaining why you need to start training for your own unique job idea. Will you become a professional eater like James?

Try to include examples with your explanations to really get the message across.

Re-read your letter aloud to check for fluency and expression. Can you use any of your VCOP skills to up-level the writing to make it even better?

Share it with a partner so discuss what works well and what would be “even better if …”