Q: On July 4, Takeru Ko bayashi ate 53.75 hot dogs in 12 minutes at a Coney Island contest. How do competitive eaters such as Kobayashi avoid damaging their health?

A: Counting the hot dogs and each bun half, Kobayashi consumed 161 items of food - "which is literally more than gross," said Dale Schoeller, a UW-Madison professor of nutritional sciences.

According to the UW- Madison Calorie Lab, those hot dogs totaled 16,532 calories. Kobayashi weighs 165 pounds, has 8 percent body fat and is highly active, so Schoeller estimates his daily caloric needs at 3,900. If Kobayashi was able to keep those 16,532 calories down, the vast majority would be stored as fat, Schoeller said.

So how does Kobayashi do it?

One obvious factor is Kobayashi doesn't eat like that every day, Schoeller said.

But he also has an unusual physiology that helps him eat a single meal that's four to five times larger than a typical Thanksgiving feast without busting a gut.

It's a non-harmful condition called gastroptosis, which means that his stomach sits unusually low in his abdomen, allowing his stomach to expand without constraint from his ribs, he said.

"He also probably trains by eating occasional large meals to force his stomach, which is a large muscle, to stretch," Schoeller added.

One last caution: Kobayashi snaps his hot dogs in half and swallows them in chunks - a serious choking hazard. So, "don't try this at home." - Produced in cooperation with University Communications

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