The Health Ministry is considering banning “mukbang” vlogs after a 37-year-old food content creator died due to a stroke.
Mukbang – a portmanteau of the Korean words “meokda” (eat) and “bangsong” (broadcast) – involves videos, usually live-streamed, of a person eating large piles of food while talking to an audience.
“It’s a bad practice because people make content by overeating, and overeating is not healthy. It will lead to obesity,” Health Minister Teodoro Herbosa said.
“And obesity will lead to hypertension, heart conditions, non-communicable diseases, and even heart attacks.”
Dr Herbosa issued the warning after the death of mukbang vlogger Dongz Apatan, on June 14.
The day before, he posted video reels of himself cooking and then eating several pieces of fried chicken and white rice.
The vlogger, who has a following of 460,000, suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma before succumbing to a haemorrhagic stroke.
“We have to study first why this person died and find out if we, the (Health Ministry), which is a regulator for health activities, can ban such activities (because) they are unhealthy,” Dr Herbosa said.
Should the ministry investigation determine that mukbang contributed to Apatan’s death, it would push for such a ban on local websites and social media platforms.
“(That’s because) you are promoting unhealthy behaviour to the Filipinos. So I can ban it locally. I can propose... banning mukbang locally,” Dr Herbosa said.
“I can even ask the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) to stop those sites (from showing and broadcasting mukbang) because it is basically food pornography.
“They are making people eat like gluttons,” he added.
Online influencers can still monetise their content “as long as it does not produce health risks”, Dr Herbosa stressed.
“If you’re earning income from something that is a public health threat, (then) I have to stop you.”
He said that for now, he would issue a public health warning and possibly an administrative order to prohibit overeating. — Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
