All U Can Eat Spaghetti Night, part 2:

So, I promised in the last post to talk about the culture that drives people to eat a lot. I’m not talking about those challenges they have in the biggest loser. I’m talking about those people we all know who seem to eat way more than the people around them without getting fat. Instead, as they eat they become stronger, faster, more resistant to radiation etc. In the technical literature this is referred to as “voluntary massive eating”. Some people manage this through monumental feats of exercise (Myall), others by storing this energy to sustain them through long periods of hibernation (Mica), and others still wear baggy clothing so that if they do get fat you can’t tell (me). But have you ever wondered whether they still eat the same amounts when you’re not looking? Could it be that the big eaters of the world can perform their culinary deeds because they’ve been starving themselves while no-one is around? If a tree made of butter falls in a forest, and no one else is around, will Myall still eat it?

The first point to note is that if the big eater in question is seriously hungry then nothing will stop them from visiting their wrath upon the edible products within range, but this would be an “involuntary massive eating event”. The case we are interested in is where the eater in question isn’t monumentally hungry – if they’re just a normal level of hungry, or not even hungry at all – will they force themselves to eat big, or will they let sleeping dogs made of chocolate lie?

There are a number of factors that place pressure on people to eat big. The first is the cost of food. The appetisingness of a foodstuff item X is proportional to its price according to the following relationship:

Appetisingness of X α average cost of X under normal conditions / cost of X

If the item you’re considering eating costs more than normal, it is not very appetising. As the price decreases to normal levels, appetisingness is not strongly influenced by price. Once the price drops below what you’d normally expect to pay, appetisingness starts increasing pretty quickly, approaching infinity as the cost gets closer to zero. In the spirit of XKCD I’ve drawn you a graph, but I don’t have paint on this PC, so you’ll have to settle for this:

Yes, people, I do have a maths degree.

This relationship explains why there’s such a strong compulsion to eat free food, and why the words “Reduced to Clear” cause my heart rate to rise by a good 40 beats per minute. It also explains why an unfavourable exchange rate can make everything in Europe tastes like ashes.

The second significant factor in voluntary massive eating is peer pressure. The critical feature that underlies this behaviour is reputation. Most big eaters are known within their communities to be capable of great feats of consumption. And for many, the hunger that leads to involuntary massive eating is uncomfortable and deeply distressing. Thus, most big eaters have a strong interest in maintaining access to large volumes of food, in case genuine hunger should occur. This means that big eaters need to impress the people around them with their feats of eating regularly to maintain their reputation and improve the chances that others will give them leftovers or overestimate the necessary quantities during food preparation and so on. The pressure to maintain their reputation often induces those prone to involuntary massive eating to eat a lot even when they’re not ravenously hungry.

This pressure is magnified when several large eaters eat together. When big eaters dine with regular folk, a system of territorial dominance develops over other people’s left-over food. By eating more than the people around them a diner gains control over the best territories and the right to any leftovers contained therein. It should be noted that this usually operates at a subconscious level. This is the “Is he having more? Maybe I’ll have some more,” effect.

And finally, big eaters provide a collegiate atmosphere in which to chow down. You might feel a bit awkward at All U Can Eat Spaghetti Night if your fellow diners have just had a bowl or two of pasta and you’re eyeing off your 14^th serving. After all, watching other people eat is kind of creepy. However, if there’s a whole pack of you, there’s a collective spirit that encourages all of you to just keep asking for more.

So, to answer the question about the tree made of butter, Myall would eat if he was hungry, or if it was free, but he probably wouldn’t just eat it just for fun. But if Myall and Mica were both there when the tree fell down, they would eat that tree, and probably also another regular tree made of wood, just to make sure that neither one felt like they’d got the upper hand.