Every few months, something new takes over your feed. Labubu dolls, Dubai chocolate, Stanley cups or matcha. You or I go crazy following one trend after another, and within a few months, the trend fades away, replaced by another. But there’s one weird trend that’s been here for a very long time now, though not a trend worth following, and it’s far from harmless. It’s called mukbang — a trend that has negatively influenced the eating habits of people of all ages.

The word Mukbang comes from Korea. It’s a mash-up of “meokneun” (eating) and “bangsong” (broadcast). It started around 2010, partly because eating alone was often seen as lonely or socially awkward, so people began broadcasting themselves eating just to feel less alone at the table.

Somewhere between then and now, it turned into one of the biggest trends on the internet. In which someone sits in front of a camera and eats an absurd amount of food, six bowls of noodles, forty dumplings, a tray full of fried meat or an entire fried chicken, with a mic taped near their mouth so viewers can hear every crunch and slurp.

Why do people even make these videos?

People who eat and make these videos are called mukbangers. Because food videos also do really well online, more and more creators keep jumping in to make money. But money isn’t the only reason here. Some experts believe that, for some creators, the camera can become a way to justify their unhealthy eating habits. They might eat a huge amount even when they’re not hungry, or keep eating way past the point of feeling full.

The unseen cost mukbagers pay!

Forcing the body to take in food that is impossible for a normal human body to consume in one sitting puts real strain on the digestive system. This is linked to acute gastric issues, ulcers, obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and in extreme cases, a stomach that literally tears from the pressure.

The problem doesn’t end there; there have also been reported cases of mukbang creators suffering serious health problems, and in a few documented cases, deaths linked to obesity or extreme eating habits have been reported.

Impact on people watching these videos:

There have been many studies, and one of which was specifically done on Gen Z viewers in Lahore, “Impact of Mukbang YouTube Videos on the Physical Well-Being of Youth in Lahore,” published in the Journal of Media and Entrepreneurial Studies (Superior University Lahore), has looked at what all this watching does to young people, and it’s not encouraging. Using Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, the same idea that explains why toddlers copy whatever the adults around them do — researchers found that viewers don’t just watch mukbang, they absorb it. This suggests that frequent viewers may gradually begin eating larger portions or eating beyond the point of feeling full without realising it.

Similarly, a study done in Turkey found regular viewers were more likely to lose control around food, eat out of emotion instead of hunger, then swing into strict dieting to compensate, basically bouncing between overeating and restriction on repeat. Another study done in South Korea found that the more they watched, the more they snacked, and the less likely they were to eat actual breakfast or dinner.

Watching someone enjoy a meal can activate some of the brain’s reward pathways associated with eating, which may temporarily reduce cravings for some people or increase them for others. Food sounds and the sight of eating light up the same reward centres in your brain that actual eating does. So when you watch a video of someone tearing into a whole roast chicken, get weirdly invested in whether they finish the bones, feel satisfied by the end of it, and then go open a bag of chips anyway, because your body never actually got fed, and then you feel hungry.

So, should you keep watching?

Not every internet trend is worth following. Mukbang videos may attract millions of views, but their popularity doesn’t make them healthy. Real trends inspire us to learn, create and be mentally healthy; they don’t encourage habits that put our mental and physical health at risk. So the next time a mukbang video appears on your screen, remember, just because something is viral doesn’t mean it’s worth following.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 1st, 2026