24-year-old mukbang streamer dies days after being hospitalised over dangerous trend
A successful Chinese mukbang streamer has tragically died after she was hospitalised with dangerously low potassium levels.
Chen Ziyi, also known as as Yingying or Ganfan Yingying, died on August 17, according to an obituary released by her family on September 4.
Her parents did not give a cause of death, however some sources, including Vietnam.vn have reported she suffered a cardiac arrest linked to her low potassium.
Yingying had told concerned fans about deteriorating health in a video posted just three days before she died.
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She had built a following of more than one million fans by posting videos and livestreams which featured her eating large quantities of food.
One of the more extreme examples which went viral involved preserved eggs, and she was seen eating between 60 and 70 eggs during a livestream promoting them.
She explained that eating more could help attract viewers and improve the performance of a mukbang video, so she often felt pressured to go to extremes.
She told viewers that she had been admitted to hospital after developing hypokalaemia, a condition in which the level of potassium in the blood becomes abnormally low.
According to Patient.info, hypokalaemia is a condition where levels drop below 3.5 mmol/L.
She said her potassium had fallen to 2.3 mmol/L, a level described by medical experts as severe.
Yingying explained that her health problems had forced her to reduce the frequency of her livestreams and said she had previously been hospitalised for low potassium previously.
She also revealed she had previously made herself sick frequently after eating, according to one report, which can cause the body to lose potassium.
“Making money is important, but health always comes first,” Yingying told her followers in the video.
Potassium plays an important role in the normal electrical activity of the heart.
Severe hypokalaemia can increase the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and, in serious cases, cardiac arrest.
Her death has raised questions about the demands placed on creators who make extreme eating content.
It comes after another 24-year-old creator died recently.
Pan Xiaoting passed away during a livestream where she was eating masses of food.
She was also seen eating more than 10kg of food per meal.
The creator also filmed attempts to eat food, non-stop, without break, for up to 10 hours per day.
An autopsy determined that the star's stomach was filled with undigested food when she died, as reported by the Maeil Business Newspaper.
Her abdomen was found to be severely deformed.
Another TikTok star, Taylor LeJeune, suffered a fatal heart attack after filming controversial videos.
LeJeune posted videos of himself eating things like canned cheeseburgers, reindeer meat, and baby food.
Most controversially, he would eat things that were long past their expiry date, such as canned ham from the 1960s.
Mukbang originally began as a form of online entertainment in which people eat while interacting with an audience as a way to fend off loneliness.
However, the e-commerce element of many livestreams has added another incentive, which can make it a lucrative source of income for creators, and can cause them to put their body under extreme stress.
China previously passed The Anti-Food Waste Law in 2021, which explicitly prohibits 'the production, publication and dissemination of audio and video content that promotes excessive food consumption and binge eating.'
Topics: Social Media, Food and Drink, Life
Jen Thomas