How much food can a person eat at one time?

In recent years, news and eating shows about "big eaters" have become common, and they can be seen on various video websites. When watching them eat up all the food in front of them in a short period of time, many people will exclaim "wow", and some people think it is cool to watch them eat, and feel that they also have an appetite instantly.

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Many countries have so-called "big eaters". For example, Japan's Kobayashi Takeshi set a world record of eating 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes in 2011. His record also includes eating 337 chicken wings in half an hour. Chester Nutter is an American big eater and a former Guinness World Record holder (66 hot dogs in 10 minutes). In addition to these men, some skinny girls actually have amazing stomach capacity. This makes people wonder, how much can a person eat at one time?

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1. How big is the stomach?

The stomach of an adult is about 25cm long and has a capacity of about 1.5L, which is equivalent to the volume of a large bottle of Coke. In fact, the specific size of the stomach varies from person to person and is also affected by age, health status, eating habits, hormones, etc.

The stomach capacity of a normal person is only about 50ml when the stomach is completely empty. As people continue to eat, the smooth muscle under the gastric mucosa continues to stretch, and it will gradually expand to 30 times its original volume, which is about 1.5L.

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However, this does not mean that after drinking a whole bottle of Coke, you can't eat anything. This is because the stomach is elastic, like a balloon, and it will continue to expand during the eating process. The size of the balloon is related to the pressure inside and outside it, and the degree of hunger and fullness of the stomach is controlled by the brain.

For example, after you drink three bottles of 500 ml of mineral water, your stomach will feel "full". The nerve cells distributed on the stomach wall will promptly send "satiety" signals to the brain, and these signals will reach the hypothalamus through the sympathetic nerves, telling us that the stomach is full and we should not drink any more water.

Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

From about the fifth bottle of mineral water, the stomach has expanded to its limit, which is clinically called acute gastric dilatation. At this time, people will feel very uncomfortable, and the stomach wall is stretched very thin. Although the thin stomach wall may not be broken, it will definitely affect the blood supply to the stomach. If the stomach is often stretched to its limit, it may cause other health problems.

In addition, the human body produces hormones when digesting certain nutrients, and these hormones reach the hypothalamus through the blood. If you continue to eat after you are full, it will trigger the "vomiting center" and vomit out the excess, so it is difficult for a person to be "overfed" if he eats normally.

Source: Baidu

2. Will the stomach capacity be expanded or reduced by hunger?

A person's feeling of hunger does not come from the stomach, but from the nerve center of the brain. The stomach is just a "receiver".

The stomach is a pouch-like structure made up of several layers of muscle, and stomach capacity refers to the amount of food that can be accommodated after the stomach pouch is expanded. When eating, the elastic stomach is temporarily expanded by food, and when the food is transferred to the intestines, the stomach will return to its original shape. Therefore, if you eat a lot at a certain meal, the stomach is only temporarily expanded, and the stomach capacity remains the same as before.

Some special groups, such as competitive eaters, use training to suppress the signals from the vomiting center. In this way, competitive eaters can stuff more food into their stomachs without considering their health. In addition, their stomachs may be naturally more elastic than ordinary people, so people feel that their stomach capacity has become larger.

Similarly, if you eat a small amount at a meal, your stomach capacity will not change significantly. How much a person eats to feel full is related to the neural regulation between the cerebral cortex. It is not the stomach that determines whether you are full, but the brain. If you keep eating less for a long time, even if you only eat a little, your brain will remind you: "I am full!"

Therefore, no matter whether you are full or hungry, your stomach capacity will not be expanded or reduced, because the shape of the stomach will be adjusted according to the amount of food.

3. What will happen if you overeat/diet for a long time?

Long-term hunger and lack of food stimulation will cause bile to be retained in the gallbladder and unable to be excreted, which can easily lead to gallstones over time. Long-term binge eating will cause the stomach to be repeatedly stretched to the extreme, which will make it loose. The decline in gastric motility will affect the normal digestive function. If you eat too fast, it will easily cause acute gastric dilatation, and dehydration and electrolyte loss may occur in a short period of time, which can even lead to death in severe cases.

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Whether it is dieting or "eating like crazy" like a big eater, abnormal eating methods themselves deviate from the meaning of eating, not to mention that there are many food waste phenomena behind it.

Eating not only provides energy for the body, but also has some positive meanings, such as relieving stress. However, during the eating broadcast, many hosts eat a lot of unnecessary food in a barbaric way, and even some foods that are harmful to health, such as some super spicy foods. Although these curious videos can bring pleasure to some viewers, this kind of eating broadcast also invisibly misleads the consumption concept of overeating and extravagance, which we should not support, let alone imitate!

Source: CCTV News

So we should not blindly follow the trend. We should control the amount of food we eat, stick to healthy eating habits, eat regularly, chew slowly, and eat until we are 80% full. This is the secret to keeping the stomach healthy.