Not the way to go
A 20-year-old Connecticut college student whose father was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks has died after choking during a pancake-eating contest.
Police say Caitlin Nelson died at a New York City hospital on Sunday, three days after participating in the contest at Sacred Heart University. She was from Clark, New Jersey, and was majoring in social work at the Catholic school in Fairfield.
Officials say the contest was part of a fraternities and sororities event.
Can we stop doing this now? Can we just shut that whole thing down and never open it again?
Eating contests – in a world where famine and food insecurity and chronic malnutrition still afflict billions of people, what could be more disgusting?
Eating isn’t a skill, so contests in it are stupid to begin with. Overeating is not just not a skill, it’s unhealthy; at the extreme it just ends with vomiting. One of the impediments to “winning” an eating “contest” is the urge to vomit.
Also nobody wants to be in the news for dying in a pancake-eating contest. Nobody.
Isn’t gluttony a mortal sin in Catholicism? I’m pretty sure that deliberately stuffing oneself, just because, was among the specific practices they had in mind.
Also: fraternities and sororities. No comment.
Same for drinking contests. A few “enthusiasts” die every year, around this time. And also at other times.