Harmless or triggering? What dietitians have to say on the food eating videos known as mukbangs
CTV
As mukbangs grow in popularity, dietitians are expressing concern about the potential impact of this trend on its audience.
A man records himself eating fast food amid piles of cheeseburgers, fish sandwiches, chicken nuggets, hashbrowns and fries, and, of course, copious amounts of sauce — all with heightened sound to hear his chewing, chewing and more chewing.
It's too much food for anyone to eat at one meal on a regular basis, but the video has nearly 5.8 million views, so that seems to be the point for many mukbang videos.
The word "mukbang" is derived from a mashup of the Korean words "meokda," which translates to eat, and "bangsong," which means broadcast. The videos usually feature a person recording themselves eating a lot of food on camera while talking to their virtual audience.
Lately, the word has become even more popular by YouTube and TikTok content creators using the term more loosely with their casual "eat with me" and "have a meal with me" videos that have more average-sized meals. By mid-August, there were over 4 million videos on TikTok with the mukbang hashtag.
It's video after video of foodie influencers, some with millions of followers on the platform, biting into various textured food on camera, the mic catching the sounds of their noisy slurps and crunches. Some of the food combinations are unexpected and even unappetizing – but many people say they can't look away.
As mukbangs grow in popularity, dietitians are expressing concern about the potential impact of this trend on its audience.
The word "mukbang" began to see a rise in YouTube searches in the beginning of 2015, according to Google Trends, and it hasn't stopped climbing since. But for off-platform web searches, the word peaked at the start of the global coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
