Big Eater - Television Tropes & Idioms

Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev in Slayers. Also Amelia and eventually Zelgadis. It seems in the Slayers universe, Big Eating might be contagious.
- It's actually mentioned somewhere that casting spells takes a lot of energy, so spellcasters naturally need to eat lots of calories if they've been spending a lot of mana. Given how Lina throws around powerful spells like they're going out of fashion, it's no wonder she eats so much. Gourry might have some basis in how big he is, but the others most likely got into the habit because they're spellcasters themselves and, more importantly, it's the only way to ensure they get anything to eat while traveling with the walking garbage cans. They eat a lot more demurely when not in her presence.
- The fourth season, Slayers Revolution, confirms that people who use lots of high-energy magic need to eat more. Amelia and Zelgadis capture Pokota, who is the size of a stuffed animal (and implied at times to actually be one, leading the viewer to wonder about the biology behind his digestive system), with food as bait, guessing correctly after seeing him use magic like Lina's that he would have a similar need for Big Eating.
Usagi (and sometimes Chibi-Usa) in Sailor Moon. Only one episode early in the first season ever concerned itself with her possible weight gain and even that was pretty much dealt with as a Compressed Vice. Sailor Moon Abridged plays this aspect up as a Running Gag, where Usagi is constantly called fat even though her character design is far from it.
- Don't even get us started on the bulimia jokes...
- The Affably Evil villainess Sailor Aluminium Siren from Stars also was a Big Eater. A Running Gag was to have her eating whatever her victims were consuming before she attacked them.
Ranma ½ plays with this trope a bit. Ranma is a borderline case; he does eat large meals, and is willing to swindle or steal food if particularly hungry, but the fights he gets into presumably burn a lot of calories and his meals aren't exceptional by ordinary standards. When he's been really pushing himself, however, he eats a lot more to recover (one anime episode has him consume five heaped bowls of rice after spending 72 straight hours doing nothing but train), and he can put away an impressive amount of food if pressed (an anime episode has him consume four full-course meals as part of a contest).
- This trope gets a more conventional look during the Martial Arts Dining storyline, where the Villain Of The Week Picolette Chardin II practises a fighting style that revolves around eating vast quantities of food at such speed the movement of the mouth is impossible to see.
- The OVA Akane and her Sisters introduce the character of Kurumi Tendō, who is not only always hungry and extremely fast at (stealing and) consuming food, but is also an Extreme Omnivore: she can even eat Lethal Chef Akane's cooking — and ask for more.
- Nabiki Tendō also has some traits of this. When someone else is paying, she can put away a surprising amount (when she first sells Kunō some photos of his "Pigtailed Girl", she puts away, in short order, a bowl of some unidentified snack, a plate of spaghetti, a double-scooped icecream cone, a hotdog, and a cup of coffee), and she is frequently seen at home munching on some kind of snack, usually potato chips or rice crackers.
Sakura Sakurambo in Urusei Yatsura regularly puts away GIGANTIC servings of food, and despite that never loses her swimsuit model figure. This is first displayed in an eating challenge in Hawaii, where, despite having taken special diet pills, she effortlessly completes an eating challenge, to the point of forcing the restaurant to shut down permanently due to eating all of the food and sending them bankrupt from buying new ingredients. In the anime version, this culminates in her not only asking for dessert (after having polished off a final course consisting of, in order, a whole roast turkey, a whole roast pig and a whole roast cow), but then asking for the teens who didn't attend to bring her some Chinese food when they fetch dinner. In the manga, she goes to take a nap in the pool after the contest is over and causes the inflatable mattress to sink, despite not having gotten the Balloon Belly that Ataru and her uncle received.
- This troper thinks that it's eventually revealed, possibly only in the manga, that Sakura's appetite (or at least her immunity to weight gain) is due to her immense spiritual powers. Because she is such a talented wizard, she converts all of the food she eats into magical energy, and because her reserves of magical energy are so vast, she can thusly eat huge amounts with ease. Her uncle is possibly the same.
- Not to forget Rei, a male Oni who eats pretty much nonstop. After crashing on earth, he spends all his money on food within a few hours, so he can't afford to repair his ship or get back to his home planet, and his idea of a romantic proposal is asking a woman to cook for him for the rest of his life. Food comes before everything else in Rei's mind — the only thing that can distract him from Lum is something to eat. It's implied to be as much this obsession with eating as the fact he's thick as two bricks that caused Lum to dump him after they were engaged.
- Cherry and Ataru come a distinct third and fourth place in the eating department. They can pack food away, and Cherry is infamous around the neighborhood for his gluttony, but neither of them holds a candle to Sakura and Rei.
- In episode 39 of the anime, Perm manages to score a date with a fairly cute girl and takes her to a fancy restaurant... only to discover that not only is she a Big Eater, she has terrible table manners, ordering multiple plates of food and shovelling them down like a hog. Lum herself actually managed to mirror her eating habits, having been instructed by a likewise-clueless Ataru to imitate the girl's manners. The results aren't shown on-screen, but after they get away, Lum apologises to Ataru for her mistake.
Aisha Clanclan in Outlaw Star. Also Gene, though not nearly to the extent that Aisha is.
- Somewhat justified, as the calories have to come from somewhere when she transforms into a gigantic beast monster thing.
Goku in Saiyuki.
Some of the Saiyans (Goku) and part-Saiyans (Gohan, Goten, present Trunks, Pan) in Dragon Ball Z. The weirdest part is that the other characters always look on in shock no matter how many times they see it done.
- Not only the Saiyans, either: Krillin also was a big eater.
- Buu, especially Super Buu, will destroy COUNTRIES FOR DESSERT!
- Heck, the only time Goku ever refused a meal was when he had a bad feeling about Krillin... and then found him dead.
- Vegeta is certainly no exception either. It's more likely that this is a universal trait of all Saiyans, since the stuff they can do must require an enormous caloric intake, although he is more of a neat eater rather than a slob because he was a prince.
Miaka Yuuki in Fushigi Yuugi takes this to quite the extremes. When the antagonists use food to lure you into traps twice...
Taiga and Saber from Fate/Stay Night. (Saber has the excuse that food replenishes her mana. Taiga doesn't.)
- Neither, apparently, does Ciel from Tsukihime. Granted, she is usually up all night hunting vampires, which might explain why her meals are usually big enough for two people. At minimum. Mostly comprised of curry.
  - Saber's excuse is pretty thin too, considering how much she eats. In the fan-disc sequel Hollow Ataraxia, almost every scene with her will bring up food, if not actually involving eating. Other characters bribe or taunt her with food at several points.
  - Let's be honest here, Saber's options are being a Big Eater and being a raging nymphomaniac.
Tamama in Keroro Gunsou has, on countless occasions, been shown eating an amount of sweet and snack foods that's bigger than he is.
Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece. Potentially justified in that A) the fighting he does would require a lot of energy, and B) that his elasticized stomach is capable of storing far, FAR more food than a normal human's. At one point, he wakes up after passing out and instantly knows exactly how many meals he missed, (5 per day, apparently) and later gets around this issue by somehow managing to eat while sleeping.
- Luffy's Big Eater status was used in the introduction of likely arch-nemesis Blackbeard. The first indication that the two are Not So Different is that they are equally matched in gluttony... but the difference is driven home when it is demonstrated that their taste in food is exactly opposite of one another.
- Then there's Wapol, an exiled king who ate the Munch-Munch Fruit, where he literally is what he eats. He even ate his subjects and spit them out "fused" together, later he used his powers to turn garbage into toys and became a billionaire..
- Finally there's captain Jewelry Bonney, whose epithet is "The Big Eater".
Yukito Tsukishiro and Keroberos, from Card Captor Sakura. Yukito's excuse is that he needs to replenish his mana due to being cut off from the source, while Keroberos just likes to eat.
- Sakura kind of qualifies. She doesn't normally eat a lot, but she can - not to mention, she can eat fast!
Kullweet Envatilia (or Kuea for short), from Elemental Gelade.
Caren from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch has been shown to be a Big Eater in the anime. She was a jerk about it, too; when Lucia and company were trying to convert her to their cause, she simply used the opportunity to leave them with her bill.
Nozomi, Rin, Urara, and Karen from Yes! Precure 5. (For those of you playing along at home, this is half the main cast, and four of the titular five.) Karen is something of an unusual example, as unlike most Big Eaters she eats calmly at a normal pace. Urara is normally the undisputed queen, but Rin and Karen can both out-eat her when they feel it necessary (i.e. when they're trying to out-eat each other). Also, Komachi was a big eater when she was younger.
- They all had a predecessor though: Nagisa Misumi from the first two Pretty Cure seasons is a bottomless pit as well, especially when it comes to sweets.
Taichi and Agumon from Digimon Adventure.
- Ditto Izumi from Digimon Frontier (who actually eats more than Junpei, who was already a bit overweight).
Uzumaki Naruto from Naruto. Like Luffy, Naruto never seems to gain any weight from his overeating.
- It's easy to see where all the energy goes...
- Anko Mitarashi eats quite a lot, too; according to the official fanbook, all the dumplings she ate while proctoring the second part of the Chunin Exam contain over 6,000 calories, the amount most adult women need in four days, and would take 18 hours of jogging to burn off.
  - As with the Ranma example above, it's easy to see where that all goes. Any time a character uses chakra, they gather energy from every cell in their body as a power source.
- Hinata is shown to be this way in one Shippuden omake, eating 46 bowls of ramen and winning an eating contest (Then again, Yamato was slightly Out Of Character for the omake, getting second place despite not liking ramen).
Mikoto Minagi from Mai-HiME, and both Mikotos (the cat and the human) in Mai-Otome.
Kikuchiyo from Samurai 7; however, he is both the largest of the seven and, well, a cyborg.
Demons in the series Konjiki No Gash Bell eat their food whole, their head transforming into some strange eating machine as a result. Main character Gash is no exception, often eating poor hapless yellowtail tuna alive immediately after catching one.
Hei of Darker than Black, an unusual quirk in an otherwise serious show.
- Leads to a very amusing moment in the second season when someone wants to forcibly recruit him and tries to talk about it over a meal. He clearly hasn't done all his research about the Black Reaper, since the look on his face when Hei orders pretty much everything on the menu is priceless.
- To a lesser extent, Kirihara as well; she says she can afford to eat greasy food since she moves around so much at work.
The title character of Flint The Time Detective. His appetite wasn't just for gags, however, it was also his Achilles Heel; Flint would become weak if he had to fight on an empty stomach.
Another Sakura: the one from Amaenaideyo. She eats enough food to feed the whole temple, and yet never loses her Bishoujo image.
Yako from Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro eats insatiably, despite being a small, teenaged girl — paralleling Neuro's appetite for mysteries. Her ability often helps solve crimes: her stomach is so powerful that she can eat any poison with no ill effects, and she can even taste how much "love" went into preparing the food.
Momoka in Touka Gettan. She first meets a couple of characters by eating their lunches.
Allen Walker in D.Gray-Man. Just look at how much food he orders when he first enters the Black Order...
- Most of parasite-type Innocence users tend to be big eaters. They need the extra calories to fuel their powers.
- Not to mention how much he ate when he got back to the headquarters after the whole Ark ordeal. His leftovers filled his bed to the point where it appeared to be a giant underneath the blankets. AND he still had the stomach to continue eating.
- Krory isn't quite as bad, but he tries.
L from Death Note never stops eating sweets. Apparently if you use your brains enough you don't have to worry about getting fat. At 179 cm and 50 kg, it must be true, right?
- Well, the brain does use something like 500 calories a day (under normal circumstances) just getting the electrical charges inside and outside the neurons back to usual after an action potential. It's not completely unheard of for a chess Grandmaster to lose a relatively substantial amount of weight during an especially grueling match.
Count D of Pet Shop of Horrors, scarily enough, can sugar-binge L under the table.
- Haven't you heard? They're the same person.
Takeshi Momoshiro and Ryoma Echizen from The Prince Of Tennis. Their friends and teammates shudder at the mere thought of having them tag along for burgers. ~~Poor Eiji~~.
- Another one is Munehiro Kabaji from Hyotei Gakuen. He's a HUGE Genius Bruiser, but since he's much more muscle than fat, he doesn't fit into the "anything but fat exceptions".
Ryō Saeba from City Hunter uses to eat huge "lunches" accompanied by two litres of eggnog.
Hanamichi Sakuragi and his friends from Slam Dunk.
Kurumi and Manami, Kyōsuke's sisters, in Kimagure Orange Road. Hatta and Komatsu truly didn't know what they were getting into when they asked the girls out for pizza. In addition to it, Kurumi is a Lethal Chef.
Based on the DVD booklets and supplementary manga, growing mages experiencing Training From Hell in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha need to eat a lot to replenish energy and Mana. Belkan users, in particular, burn plenty of calories. Thus, Subaru and Erio tend to really pile on the food during meal time.
- And we're not even considering what happens when Subaru goes to an ice cream store...
- Subaru's and Erio's Big Eater-ism is also noticable in the actual anime, if you pay close attention during the scenes where they all eat together.
- Vita has quite an appetite, especially for strawberry ice cream, and claims that it's because she's growing (although given that she's a program that never ages, this is untrue).
- Ginga is also a Big Eater. Subaru once sees a HUGE pile of lunchboxes behind her and just says "hey, you're not eating much today?"
Yoruichi Shiouin from Bleach. In the anime episode #114, she is seen eating plate after plate of food, going on for a good 55 seconds, this doubles as Fanservice as she was in her underwear the entire time.
- Let's not forget Orihime, it's joked that all the food goes straight to her above average bust.
Fuyuma from Magikano. She talks and thinks about food near-constantly, and she fantasizes about living in a gingerbread house full of sweets... however, she exercises near-constantly, too, and says that she likes to exercise even more than she likes to eat.
Yuri Cube in Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. (Maybe subverted since she's an android...)
The protagonist from Ryofuko-chan manages to consume an impressive amount of food for her size. The fact that she's still growing might help, but still...
Yuki Nagato from Suzumiya Haruhi is a possible borderline example here. She's not mentioned eating extraordinary amounts of food, but it is frequently commented on how fast she wolfs down her meal.
C. C. from Code Geass sure loves pizza. Fans like to joke that it goes straight to her trunk, hench the Fan Nickname "Pizza Butt".
Shizuka Doumeki from xxxHOLiC is not only a Big Eater, but he's an extraordinarily picky one at that. Apart from demanding stupidly difficult-to-make dishes from Watanuki, he also adamantly refuses to eat anything made by someone he doesn't know or approve of. (His grandfather mentioned that it was nearly impossible to take him out to any restaurants because of this.)
Yuko from S.S. Astro. She brings multi-level bento to school everyday, and eats after every class.
Three female examples from Ikki Tousen: Hakufu, Ryuubi and Chouhi. Both Chouhi and Ryuubi do look a bit pudgier, but in Chouhi's case it's more likely to be muscle than fat since she's a Cute Bruiser.
- "Sister series" Koihime Musou has Kyocho, Bachou, and (like Ikki Tousen above), Chouhi the Cute Bruiser.
Miyako in Hidamari Sketch is one, but since she is also in perpetual poverty, she is practically sponging off her three neighbours.
Jounouchi Katsuya from Yu-Gi-Oh! "Keep your hands and feet away from his mouth!"
- Also, on at least two occasions, normal Bakura. Maybe most notably, that time at the end of the Battle City arc where he got about a dozen random things out of the fridge and had a little picnic. The fact he's nonetheless just 114 lbs at 5'9" is justified by the fact that he only eats like a mad eating thing when he's missed several meals.
America and Italy from Axis Powers Hetalia love to shovel junk food and pasta down their respective throats.
- A satirical reference to the state of affairs today?
  - Considering the series, definitely.
Pokémon: Ash and his friends have been known to fall into this category every now and then, usually when sitting down to an extravagant meal put on by some gracious host.
- This especially applies to May. Taking away food is her Berserk Button, as Team Rocket quickly learned! She also has a few Pokemon that take after her — her Beautifly also qualified while it was a Wurmple, and one wonders how Brock is physically able to carry enough food to keep Munchlax satisfied.
- Dawn captures a Swinub with this personality halfway through Sinnoh.
- Diamond from Pocket Monsters Special is almost never seen without food in hand, often to the frustration of his friend Pearl. His Pokémon seem to follow his example.
- Ash strongly applies to the trope, as in many episodes (more often in the early ones), his stomach will be growling constantly (to the annoyance of other characters), and when he gets food, he'll stuff it down rather piggishly. He's even more piggish in the dub than the original uncut version. Also, many characters will comment on his eating habits:
Misty: Oh, and you'll probably need more food, Ash gets pretty hungry.

And:

Misty: Ash, maybe if you didn't eat such a big breakfast, we wouldn't be running late!

Also:

May: Maybe if you weren't such a big fat Swinub, we'd get to the boat on time!

And another:

May: Ash, you don't have to eat so fast, it's not like anyone's going to steal it.

Ash's eating habits started to catch up to him, however. In mid Advanced Generation episodes, Ash seems to be getting chubbier, and in a season 11 episode, Ash finally admits that he ate too much, complete with showing his extra large belly. Starting in mid season 12, Ash started getting chubby again.

Kagura from Gintama is constantly snacking on sukonbu. She also eats so much that Gintoki once used her to get out of paying a bill at a place running an "Eat XX amount in XX minutes and it's free!" promo. Gintoki himself is a sugar freak who only cuts back because his doctor told him he was on the verge of diabetes.
Hatsune from Zettai Karen Children eats a whole lot, preferably anything with animal protein, which comes part and parcel with her abilities to transform into a wolf.
André in Rose of Versailles, at least according to Oscar.
Hime from Yozakura Quartet is often accused of this although she loses an eating contest at one point.
Suzume from Hyakko has a nigh-insatiable appetite. It doesn't help that everybody feels obliged to hand her food.
In two recent Cutey Honey versions, the titular Magical Girl was a Big Eater since she burned LOTS of energy while fighting/transforming, so she needed at least a minimum of energy to have access to her Voluntary Shapeshifter and Master Of Disguise powers.
Midori from Telepathy Shoujo Ran, who can hold her own in the fiercest of eating contests.
It's only once made a plot point, but any time Simon or Kamina of Gurren Lagann sit down to eat, they generate a tremendous pile of dishes.
- Simon is also an Extreme Omnivore and is the only person to eat Nia's horrid cooking besides Nia herself. To put this in perspective: poor Rossiu sampled whatever she cooked, passed out for the rest of the episode... and was hospitalized for 2 days.
Saki in Shikabane Hime munches sweets at a rate that would put L to shame.
Train from Black Cat manages to use up millions of dollars from hard earned bounties by eating too much. How he manages to remain stick thin remains a mystery...
- In certain fan communities, there's actually a joke about how, even if Creed wanted Train, he probably wouldn't be able to support him, considering how Train goes through food money like water.
Natsumi Tsujimoto and Shoji Tokairin from You're Under Arrest!.
Hayate The Combat Butler has Ayumu. While her meals aren't normally out of the ordinary, they are more frequent than those of any other character in the series.
Eyeshield 21: Otawara eats a ton but is almost pure muscle. With Popeye arms. Ikari, Otawara's teammate, is a Big Eater himself, but while a tough, muscular guy, is built pretty slim.
- How the hell is Kurita not here?!? The man ate 100 cream puffs on one occassion, and I wouldn;t doubt it if he was the one who ate the bulk of 100 servings of beef in a challenge with another team.
Kabuto Kouji of Mazinger fame is occasionally shown to be one. Hell, in the Mazinkaizer movie, he eats about ten times as much as the rest of the table combined (yes, those dishes are all his◊) before insisting that he's still hungry.
Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist tends to do this, all while also eating his brother's share due to a certain handicap in that area.
- Then they found a guy passed out on the ground, which turned out to be Ling. Ling promtly began inhaling downright ridiculous amounts of food, all while refusing to pay for his own tab. (Edward was not pleased.) It's implied that his bodyguard Lan Fan eats almost as much as he does, as they're shown stuffing their faces in unison occasionally.
- Ed's eating habits at least seem to be justified because the extra food he eats may be partially sustaining Al's body on the other side of the Gate.
- Ling is a human Big Eater with the running gag that he always puts his large meals on Ed's tab.
An unusually dark example is in The Drifting Classroom. Nakata is an insatiable eater. The problems: first, they're in a post apocolyptic wasteland with no way to get more food, so his eating is causing others to starve. Second, when he eats he summons an invincible gigantic insect monster that tries to kill everyone.
Najika, the main character of Kitchen Princess is portrayed as one of these, probably related to her absolute sense of taste.
Shiranui (seen here eating a Double-Double-Double) from Medaka Box; hilarious because she's also a scheming, Nabiki Tendo-esque little Moe girl.
Saya from Blood Plus.
Kuro from Kuro Kami.
Chizuko from Mahoromatic is the smallest of the schoolgirls, yet she has a near-bottomless stomach.
Horo from Spice and Wolf doesn't wolf down an unrealistic amount of food like some of the other examples as fitting the more serious tone of the series, but she will eat herself sick if she's got enough apples and in the novels she loves cookies. She's had serious hangovers more than once, too.
- This may be a case of Shown Their Work. Wolves will eat like this in the wild if given the chance. When you are never quite sure when the next meal is supposed to come, you're more likely to binge when the opportunity presents itself, such as when a wolf pack cooperates to bring down prey bigger than themselves. While not as extreme, many dogs will act like this as well.
Fuu of Samurai Champloo. She outdid every other contestant in a eating contest including fellow good eater Mugen, except for one, and only lost because of an unfortunate mistake she commited.
Thor in Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok has lots of part-time jobs just so he can afford to eat more.
Uehara in Good Morning Call. The first meal we see him eat is four pizzas, all in one go.
Legato Bluesummers from Trigun is a relatively rare villain example. Word Of God says that this was intended to be a humorous character trait, but also serves to make him creepy as hell depending on the context of the meal.
- That hotdog. Eeeew...
A more serious example in Hell Teacher Nube: when Kyoko is possessed by the spirit of an unborn child, she grows an extra mouth on her nape (which uses her twin ponytails as tentacles to snatch food from the vicinity.) It is impossibly ravenous, impossible to satisfy, and Kyoko does gain weight from whatever the mouth eats. When she discovers the suffering the child's soul is going through, she eats too, to stop it from trying to devour random objects and even classmates, until Nube exorcises the soul. And then Kyoko has to burn all the weight off with traditional exercise!
Angelica Burns from Coyote Ragtime Show pretty much eats non-stop, often eating huge meals, and constantly eating snacks in between.

Averell Dalton from the Lucky Luke comic books and animated series. So is the dog Rantanplan, sometimes. On occasion, they're both bordering on Extreme Omnivore.
Averell Dalton: (eating Chinese food) The long salt sticks and the thin pancakes taste good!
Jack Dalton: Idiot! Those are the chopsticks and the tissues!
In the comic strip Blondie, Dagwood constantly eats comically large sandwiches. He's so well known for it that his name has entered the dictionary meaning "a thick sandwich filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, dressings, and condiments." In Belgium, Dagobert (the French name for Dagwood) is the name of (thick) sandwiches made from a half French bread filled with lots of ham, cheese, salad, tomatoes, carrots, mayonnaise and sometimes onions.
Peter and Roger from Fox Trot; while Peter does this year-round (even eating groceries before his mother has gotten them to the parking lot of the store), he and his father really shine on Thanksgiving. Partly subverted because Roger is already a little chubby. Also partly subverted during those times Peter is deliberately trying to gain weight (and failing miserably).
After Barry Allen was killed and Wally West took over as The Flash, there was an attempt for a while to make him a more realistic speedster by limiting his speed to around 700 mph and forcing him to intake massive amounts of food to maintain his energy. Later, after merging with the Speed Force, he no longer needed to eat, though that didn't stop him from stuffing his face in the blink of an eye. At least up until the death of Bart Allen, most of DC's speedsters were depicted as ravenously hungry.
- Illustrated in this sequence, in which Wally was eating a burger "the size of [his] head".
  Linda: I thought you didn't need to eat like that any more?
  Wally: I don't need to. I want to.
- Speaking of which, Bart's a heavy eater as well; the only piece of food he's seen to explicitly reject is raw fish.
Ruthlessly subverted in DC Comics's 52. Sobek (the stuttering crocodile) is a Big Eater animal Mascot... until he catches the Kid Hero in a moment of weakness, at which point he graphically kills and eats the kid, and reveals himself to be the Horseman of Famine, created to have a vast hunger which can only be quenched by eating great heroes.
Jughead from Archie Comics. (Pictured above) There was actually one story where two fat kids asked him how he managed to eat so much and stay so skinny. He attributed it to lots of running. From Big Ethel.
- One comic attributed Jughead's skinniness to a unique metabolism. In it, he undergoes some sort of an accident (A whack on the head), which reverses it so that he always gains calories from everything he eats, causing him to gain a ton of weight. It's reversed somehow after he is fed cafeteria food and Dilton theorizes that the effects of his metabolism just can't be reproduced.
- Another comic suggested that all the calories went to his brain and were the cause of his perfect memory(in that story). When he follows a normal diet he's unable to remember his own name.
- In yet another comic, when he starts eating healthily to set a good example for his baby sister, he starts passing out a lot and it turns out he's hypoglycemic (or at least comic-book!hypoglycemic).
- In yet another another story, Jughead tells Betty and Veronica he stays thin with peanut butter. They eat a ton of it and gain weight like nothing. When they confront him, he says that he just really likes peanut butter and his exercise regiment must keep him thin. The girls pummel him.
Magali from the Brazilian Monica's Gang comics. Her favorite food is watermelons... which she swallows whole.
In the comic DP7, Blur is another example of a super-speedster who has to constantly eat to fuel his metabolism.
- Before he got his superpowers he was overweight, bordering on obese, and worked as a manager at a fast food joint.
Yorick from German comic YPS.
Jeremy in Zits. Truth In Television, as anyone who knows teenaged boys can aver.
Pol Pitron from Yoko Tsuno, who once even gets sick from eating too much. Also the Team Chef.
Matter Eater Lad, a member of The Legion of Superheroes. His ("lame") superpower is being THE Extreme Omnivore.

In A Very Potter Musical, Ron Weasley always has a snack, including but not limited to: a carton of Chinese food, a bag of Funions, Twizzlers handed to him by a member of the band, and a Hershey bar the size of his torso.
Ron: Accio double-stuffed!

In the animated film Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle, Tarzoon encounters the Everything-Devouring Multitudinous Munchers who eat everything in sight. They devour three people, a tree, several hippopotamus, an alligator, an ostrich, a giraffe, and several water buffalo all in a manner of seconds.

Rusty from the Oceans Eleven series is almost always shown eating something in every scene.
- According to Brad Pitt, it was decided that Rusty would just eat all the time. He first mentioned this when he was eating after having worked all day without a break for lunch and was hungry, because he thought it would be a good character trait for Rusty Ryan as well. This leads to a gag at the end of the film where Rusty gets heartburn and throws the food away.
From The Blues Brothers:
Jake: I'll have four fried chickens and a coke.
Mrs. Murphy: You want chicken wings or chicken legs?
Jake: I want four fried chickens and a coke.
Drew Barrymore's character in the Charlies Angels movie.
Dylan: I'll have three hamburgers, three fries, and three cherry pies. (Turns to Natalie and Alex) What do you guys want?
Actual line from Citizen Kane:
Jedidiah: Are you still eating?
Kane: I'm still hungry.

In Plautus's plays, table-companions (a peculiar Roman institution, also called "parasites") are played as comically large eaters, making this Older Than Feudalism. Ergasilus in Captivi, given the run of Hegio's kitchen, causes an uproar not unlike those common in The Slayers.
Eliar from The Redemption of Althalus.
Mr. Vandemar, in Neverwhere.
Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry.
Miles Teg from Heretics of Dune undergoes a transformation that unlocks his Super Speed powers, and as a consequence, has to consume many, many normal human portions to satisfy his hunger. Justified as his metabolism is accelerated to compensate for the increased energy demands. This is commented upon with amazement by the people who observe him eat.
The Hungry Tiger in the Oz books is quite possibly the largest and most powerful tiger in the whole of Nonestica, and has an appetite to match. He is only full once — after devouring a good portion of a royal banquet.
Everyone likes to eat in Redwall, but hares have it as a defining trait. To great comedic effect in most of the books.
The hobbits from The Lord of the Rings are seen as able to put away large quantities of food. In a normal day, they eat six meals (Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Luncheon, Dinner, Supper, plus whatever snacks they can sneak between). As a reference to this, in the Films, elvish Lembas bread, a small bite of which is supposed to feed a normal man, is consumed in the amount of several loaves each by the sidekicks Merry and Pippin, with only mild indigestion to show for it.
- In the book, though, it is Gimli who inadvertently eats a day's worth of lembas, having mistaken it for the much less appealing cram (human-made waybread with excellent keeping qualities and the flavour and texture of cheap cardboard) and reacting with delight on finding that it's tastier than the best honey-cakes he knows of.
From the Wild Cards series of novels, we have Croyd "The Sleeper" Crenson, who can sleep for as little as a night or as much as several weeks/months. Upon waking, he is always a Big Eater, to the point that there's a jingle about it, and people recognize him by his eating habits.
Tales of MU has the burrow gnomes with eating habits inspired by the above-mentioned Hobbits, as well as Mariel the sylph who eats as much as four people in order to keep her hyper metabolism up.
Benny from The Boxcar Children book series, despite being only six years old.
All the bird-kids in the Maximum Ride series have this, because of super-high metabolism to give them energy to fly. Amusingly, in the first young adult novel, they show up at a restaurant and start to order dinner, and the staff think it's some sort of prank.
Claudia Kishi from The Babysitters Club 1990s-era juvenile book series is a model-thin junk food addict. This troper suspects many an eating disorder can be traced to this character.
- In the book where Stacy is introduced, Claudia suspects she has an eating disorder. Turns out she's just diabetic.
Fitz Kreiner from the Doctor Who Television Tie In Novels. It's more a combination of speed and quantity than any flagrant absurdity in either regard, though. And, of course, he's incredibly skinny. He also has Extreme Omnivore tendencies.
Dexter. The title character mentions in the novels he has an accelerrated metabolism.
Geronimo Stilton's cousin, Trap.
The Librarian in the "Hard-Boiled Wonderland" segment of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is one of these, to the point where most of her salary is used to pay for food. It is explained as an effect of her gastric dilation.
Honor Harrington's portions often get comments (and envious stares from her less metabolically blessed colleagues), but then she is a genetically engineered heavyworlder with a Super Strength and requisite metabolism. Though, given how much exercise she subject herself to, she'd probably won't be fat even without her genetic tweaks.
- Her big eating was even deconstructed in In Enemy Hands, when she was captured and her wardens kept her at reduced normal rations (which of itself were essentially half-portions to her) specifically to make her weaker.
Harry Dresden says that he "eats like a horse", but is still tall and skinny.
A rather horrifying version includes the entire Taxxon species from Animorphs, who have a maddening hunger that makes them eat anything they can — including any injured member of their species or, on at least one occasion, oneself.

A more modest though still unrealistic form of this ability is displayed by the waifish title characters of Gilmore Girls.
Joey Tribbiani from Friends. In one episode he volunteers to eat a whole Thanksgiving turkey, which doesn't mean he'll stop eating until then. (He calls it "warming up.")
- Another episode involving Phoebe's birthday dinner at a nice restaurant. Over the course of the episode, everyone, including Phoebe, leaves for other activities... except Joey. He's bummed at first, but lights up when all of the already ordered entrees arrive.
  Joey: Dinner for six for one? (to waiters) You guys are about to see something real special...
  He even eats the birthday cake afterwards.
  Joey: This is the best birthday ever!
Dean Winchester of Supernatural eats constantly and spends most of his life sitting in a car, but still manages to look as toned as Jensen Ackles.
- All the "Dean eats constantly" jokes have been getting slightly jarring recently because Jensen Ackles looks like he's lost even more weight while Jared Padalecki (the one who's never seen to be eating) looks like he could bench-press him easily.
Fred of Angel is shown to eat a lot, despite being played by the waifishly thin Amy Acker. Lampshaded when, after a breakfast with Gunn, he says "Where do you put it all in that little tiny body?"
- With all the times it was noted in the script that Fred is too skinny [calling her a twig, ect.] this troper wonders if possibly the writers did it to get Amy Acker to eat.
Upon being invited for dinner at the Summers home, Faith of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was ravenously shoveling food down her throat and even sneaking food off of Buffy's plate. This likely contributes to the fanon idea that Slayers in general are big eaters.
Sylar can often seen eating or drinking and can eat an entire pie by himself. There's even a video montage. This trope is also played with as his constant desire for power and abilities are often described as "a hunger".
The Coneheads from Saturday Night Live and their obsession with "consum[ing] mass quantities." In The Movie, the daughter eats a footlong Subway sandwich in about two seconds.
Sam on Las Vegas is Front of House's secret weapon during a hot dog eating contest against Back of House, despite Vanessa Marcil looking like she's never even touched a hot dog.
Sam in iCarly is a female example.
Tuppy Glossop of Jeeves and Wooster is a somewhat mild example.
"I am not devoted to food! I have a healthy appetite."
Teal'c of Stargate SG-1 is shown to fill a tray entirely with food during his lunch.
- An episode of Stargate SG-1 has the team's metabolism boosted by alien devices. The sneak off base and go for steak. Jack orders three steaks, and calls the waitress back with the "That's just for me" line when she thinks that's all.
From Stargate Atlantis, Dr. McKay is a big eater. He's not terribly discriminating, either — the only thing he doesn't like about airline food is they won't give him seconds.
- Except, of course, for any food including lemon, which he's allergic to.
Adric of Doctor Who — particularly when he hasn't had any breakfast. And later the Master in "The End of Time".
Chuck Noblet in Strangers with Candy is constantly eating at his desk, which turns out to be foreshadowing for "Feather in the Storm" when we find out he's bulimic.
There is an ongoing gag about how much Liz Lemon from 30 Rock loves to eat, especially junk food (perhaps because her life is so hectic she never has time for proper meals.) Liz also gets pretty violent when someone steals her food.
D.I. Peter Carlisle in the BBC miniseries Blackpool is almost always eating, unless he's unhappy.
Iolaus from Hercules The Legendary Journeys has a hearty appetite. Slaying monsters probably burns calories.
Jayne Cobb seems to spend more time eating or looking for food than another crew member of Firefly, moreso in the feature film.
"He's always eating! That's why they're so poor."
- He has, on at least one occasion, called dibs on food briefly abandoned by other crew members.
  "Hey, free soup!"
Steve from Full House. One episode even shows him grabbing food from the Tanner residence before his dinner date because he wants to "warm up".
In the pilot of CBS's The Flash, Barry Allen, much like his nephew in the comics, was explained to burn calories at a tremendous rate and was thereafter shown constantly inhaling food.
Brent and Lacey from Corner Gas. Brent even eats an entire bowl of perogies in under five seconds, and says it isn't his best time.
- He only took so long because Lacey fed him a big plate of chili cheese dogs before their eat-off in an attempt to fill him up.
Julius Nicholson from The Thick Of It: "A man cannot live on Jaffa Cakes alone- I've tried".

The puppet for Jacques Chirac in Les Guignols de l'info is portrayed as a Big Eater, always willing to devour large quantity of food. This is an exaggeration of the real-life Jacques Chirac, who has nonetheless the reputation of a healthy appetite.

Pretty much any game that features the Power Up Food and Hyperactive Metabolism tropes. Finding whole turkeys or cakes inside those oil drums you just kicked? They'll be gone in a second, and you'll always be ready for more.
Hilda's combat abilities in Shadow Hearts 3 actually justify her eating habits - she casts from calories.
- And if her calories get high enough, she ends up both "curvy" (read: ridiculously round) and barely recognizable.
In Dragon Age, a conversation with Alistair reveals that most Grey Wardens eat like it's going out of style. Of course, since you never see your character eat... (Informed Flaw works just as well, there.)
Mega Man Star Force has Sonia Strumm and Bud Bison as noted by Geo Stelar, Luna Platz and Zack Temple.
- Speaking of Luna, fail to grab her handkerchief in the third game (you have to choose between it, Sonia's fan-gift bag, and Bud's shirt) and watch her gorge on "comfort food".
- Also Netto from Rockman EXE / Mega Man Battle Network. On one occasion in the anime, he gorges on curry until he balloons up cartoonishly, though a couple scenes later he turns back to his usual skinny self.
Yuyuko Saigyouji from the Touhou series.
- Aside from constantly referencing food in the eighth game, if you take the translations literally, she actually eats a boss during the course of the game, merely complaining of a small bone afterward. Kindasorta justified in that she's a ghost. But only partially. It should be noted that the boss she "ate" made a full recovery in time for the ninth game.
Cecilia from Wild ARMs and Lilka from Wild ARMs 2 are both Big Eaters in the magic user category, although it's only used for a single gag in each game.
Reid from Tales of Eternia, who states outright several times that he is 'not interested in anything that doesn't fill his stomach', and who is constantly hungry and in search of things to eat. Furthermore, the sole reason he has become proficient in using a sword is so that he can hunt for food in the forests. In the crossover game Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, there occurs a memorable (and hilarious) scene involving Reid practically molesting Senel (from Tales of Legendia) over a basket of bread that Senel happens to be carrying.
Naked Snake of Metal Gear Solid 3 would probably qualify for this, as would EVA when you have to escort her. Polishing off two sets of rations (engineered to keep you going for at least a day) in a minute and walking away no less hungry than before? Yeah.
- Not to mention how the only thing he's interested in during ParaMedic's nature lessons, is whether he can eat the item in question.
  - Add to that the Boss's comment at the beginning of the game about him having lost weight. Suggests his love of food is a little more that just necessary stamina recovery.
  - In Portable Ops, he complains about Sigint's idea to make eating unnecessary for soldiers, because eating is the highlight of his day.
Kirby, especially in the Anime Kirby of the Stars, can devour large quantities of food without any consequences — except in one episode with special snack food that makes him (and King Dedede) extremely fat.
- King Dedede himself isn't too much of a slouch on eating either, though he often qualifies as a Villainous Glutton.
- Parodied by Dueling Analogs here, where Galactus and Unicron (yes, ''those'' guys) come together for an intervention to get Kirby to admit he has an eating disorder.
Maya Fey from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, who even claims she has separate stomachs for particular foods she likes.
- As her former Suspiciously Similar Substitute, Ema may also have picked up the habit: [1]
The Cavalier Lowen, Marcus' right hand in Fire Emblem 7. A partially Justified Trope because he's actually the cook of the party (mentioned in his supports), not to mention he was raised by his father and grandfather, both former cooks for the Pherae royalty.
Queen Memory in TwinkleStar Sprites, who is perpetually hungry and (in her ending scene) asks the wish-granting Twinkle Star for an enormous amount of food (plus sherbert for desert). It's suggested her daughter Ran might be the same way.
There's also the thunder mage Ilyana from Fire Emblem 9 and 10. To start, every support conversation she has involves her being hungry. She joins your party in the 10th game at first to avenge her stomach for being fed scraps that could never satisfy her. However, at her first introduction in the 9th game, the hero assumes she's just ill. Also, other characters accuse her of using her really cute looks to get free food.
- Taking this trope to the extreme, she even complains that she's dying with an empty stomach when she is killed in battle (in a game where non-plot critical characters such as herself die for real).
- One popular fan theory is that she has a tapeworm.
Li Xiangfei from The King of Fighters and Fatal Fury. Two of her endings show her getting her teammates and friends in trouble for her appetite and several of her winning quotes involve her mentioning food. Her family has a restaurant in South Town, yeah, but oh booooy...
- The psychic Sie Kensou from KOF is *such* a big eater that he actually uses eating niku-man dumplings as a special fighting technique that lets him recover health during battles... as long as he doesn't choke on them,
Chip in Sonic Unleashed.
The main character of Persona 3. On one of the dates with Elizabeth, in which the two of them go to all of the strip mall's restaurants, she asks him afterwards if he was alright, as he had "eaten little after our seventh meal". In the Moon social link, the Gourmet King comments on how the main character can eat so much and still stay thin. The main character is also portrayed this way in the manga◊.
Taokaka from Blaz Blue. She actually carries a Hammer Space plate around in case food becomes available, and offering/buying her food instantly gains you a place on her "good person" list.
- Noel and her two friends may also count. In the second episode of "Teach Me, Miss Litchi!", the three of them are stated to have taken a restaurant up on their challenge to eat two thousand pounds of food. It doesn't specify whether they each had to eat that much or if it could be divided between the three of them, but that's still a lot. Of course, it also doesn't say whether or not they succeeded.
  - At least "squirrel-girl" Makoto must have eaten a whole lot, as she decided to burn off those calories by climbing a tree and swinging off a branch, only the branch broke and she hurt her ankle in the process (hence the trio's presence at Litchi's clinic in the first place).
Alex Mercer from Prototype is one hungry Humanitarian.
Dante Robinson from Backyard Sports.
Your average Monster Hunter character can gobble down a comically oversized hunk of meat in about five seconds, and a full meal in roughly the same time.
Zaalbar from Knights of the Old Republic. Mission snarks that he needs "eight squares a day." In his first in-game appearance, he is annoyed with having to back up Mission against a pair of Rodians because "Mission, they just brought my food!" And, when enslaved for maybe a day, became so hungry he bit a hunk out of one of his captor's arms. He is also the party member that approaches you when someone other than him is getting into the emergency rations. Justified somewhat in that Zaalbar appears to be the Wookiee equivalent of a BIG teenaged boy.

Nanase from El Goonish Shive. Lampshade hung at one point, when Susan point-blank asked how she managed to avoid being fat. She (well, at the time, he) handwaved it with some stuff about spells burning calories.
- That was even the hidden gag in this comic!
Ben from Loserz. Three double cheeseburgers and half a pizza for lunch — as close as Real Life can be.
In Gnoph, hosts to Gnoph symbiotes have to eat large amounts of food. If they use too many Gnoph powers without eating enough, the Gnoph will start to consume body tissues for energy. Abbey, who grew up homeless and was therefore never able to get enough food, is anorexic to the point of Body Horror.
In Emergency Exit, Eddie can consume large amounts of sugary foods with no consequences. Another character, Karl, also tends to eat large quantities of food when he's depressed though he actually gains weight from it and has consistent troubles keeping it under control.
Molly and Galatea, the pink furry peanut butter monsters in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob both have very high metabolisms (they grew from infancy to maturity in a month's time, and are fleet-footed enough to outrun a bear at full gallop) and will eat enormous quantities of any kind of food. Molly has reservations about eating peanut butter, though, saying it makes her feel "kinda cannibalistic".
General Protection Fault: Fooker is well-known for having a truly rapacious appetite at times. Normally, he seems to have standard desires for food, but when it comes to some kinds of junk food, especially pizza, he can put enough away to put the Flash to shame. He's twice now nearly driven a pizza place (run by the same guy) out of business due to eating all of their merchandise and earned multiple lifelong banning for it.
The webcomic Craving Control's lead character was a coed named Lalia, who was implied to acually have a binge eating disorder, but you wouldn't know it from her slim, extremely busty figure. This was eventually subverted as in one of the last strips, eighteen years of overeating finally caught up to her and she woke up with thicker hips and a noticable pair of love handles. Guess she finally ran out of room for fat in her breasts.
Other characters often make reference to Gwynn "scarfing down" some sort of food or another (which she always angrily denies), but despite having eaten more recently than most of the rest of the cast, she's the first to get hungry when they're all trapped in the ass of hell. Well, first human, anyway.
Robin DeSanto of It's Walky! eats tremendous amounts of candy, as a justification of her Super Speed. Both her Super Speed and Big Eater habits have been played down (But not removed!) since she moved to Shortpacked!.
- Walky had occasional Big Eater moments as well, usually involving his favorite snack food ~~Doritos~~ Nachitos. Of course at one point it's revealed that this is pretty much all Walky ate back then.

Brittany from Dimension Heroes has been stated to fit into this trope, though it has yet to be seen.
Chaz and Hafidha in Shadow Unit.
Tennyo, at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. It turns out her mom is a superhero with Energizer powers, and can almost out-eat Tennyo.
The players of JLA Watchtower one time got into a debate of "Which team would win an eating contest? Wally West and Jesse Quick or Gar Logan and Aurora Andersen?" (Aurora is about 5'2" and small-built, but is also an animal-shifter like Gar is).

Both Shaggy and Scooby in Scooby-Doo.
- This is strange considering that Shaggy is the thinnest member of Mystery Inc., but considering all the running he does....
- This is lampshaded in "Scooby-Doo and the Witches Ghost" when both he and Scooby eat a ton of food and put on a lot of weight they later drop the weight after running away from the Hex Girls whom they think are witches.
- In "Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico", it is stated that he has a high metabolism.
- Marijuana can also induce a case of the munchies — there's a reason why there's always smoke coming out of the van.
Odd Della Robia in Code Lyoko frequently cleans the ~~plates~~ lunch trays of his closest friends, in spite of maintaining a svelte frame.
Futurama's Nibbler, who converts the calories into super-dense spaceship fuel.
- And the rest of the Niblonians, for that matter. The Feast of a Thousand Hams, anyone?
  - We also would've accepted The Feast of a Thousand Beasts.
Like his comics counterpart, The Flash from Justice League eats big to fuel his incredible metabolism, as does Kid Flash of Teen Titans.
We've seen Cyborg and Terra eat monstrous amounts of food in Teen Titans.
Jimmy and Jerry Gourd of Veggie Tales. In their introductory episode, they eat an entire asteroid. (It was made of popcorn, but still, that's a lot of popcorn.)
Bink from the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers episode Adventures in Squirrelsitting. She is a toddler, yet she sucks an apple that's larger than herself empty within mere seconds, including the core, and she's still hungry.
Possibly Buster from the Arthur TV series. More implied than shown ("Only two helpings of dessert? Are you sure you're feeling OK?").
A play in Avatar: The Last Airbender that covers the events of the main characters' journey makes Sokka out to be a Big Eater. Though despite the fact that the play exaggerated everyone's traits, Sokka does seem to like food more than the other main characters, as seen when he couldn't go a moment without thinking about food in the episode "The Southern Air Temple".
Sokka: Can't talk. Must eat.
Dimmy Finster from The Snorks seems to have an insatiable appetite. On occasion, when seen eating ice cream with the other Snorks, his bowl is twice as big. On other occasions the others make comments. Like the time All-Star said "Uh oh, if we want anything to eat, we better hurry!" when Dimmy was in the kitchen.
The little rodent Rufus in Kim Possible once eat two months of her allowance, in just one meal. Also Ron Stoppable did it during special episode about fatness.
- Kim herself once ate an entire plate of Nacos in one second, in an effort to bond with Ron and his new friend Felix when she started feeling left out.
  Kim: Sorry if I've been acting totally random lately.
  Ron: You mean about the jealous thing with Felix?
  Kim: Was it that obvious?
  Ron: Kim, you ate all his nacos.
Wakko Warner of Animaniacs is also known for stuffing his face full of... well, anything. While his siblings Yakko and Dot normally go after the sweet stuff, Wakko likes to gobble up nearly everything in sight. Even a refrigerator.
Philly Phil of Class of 3000 eats far more than his skinny frame would suggest, such as downing half a pizza (his friends don't flinch, so he must do this quite often), and has even bordered on Extreme Omnivore.
Kam: (after Phil has eaten his 101st donut... with a candle on it!) Don't you chew?
Phil: Depends.
GIR in Invader Zim... which is made all the odder by the fact that he's a Robot Buddy. The only time he ever gets fat from it is one episode where he started mugging kids for their Halloween candy and ended up fattening up to about the size of a SUV.
Chester, Mark, and Grippulon in The Fairly Oddparents. Chester especially when he became Matter Muncher Lad
Basically the one joke of Billy Boy. Tex Avery still manages to get a lot of mileage out of it.
Che the dog from The Goode Family will devour any smaller animal that comes near him because he refuses to eat the vegetarian dog food that his owners feed him, a great example of this is in the episode "Goodes Gone Wild" in which a swarm of squirrels infest the school and Gerald brings Che along because he doesn't want him to fight with Gutterball the marsupial he devours one that gets within reach of him and upon learning that the school is covered with them he licks his lips with delight and breaks his chain, at the end of the episode the swarm is gone and Che is lying against a tree with a huge swollen belly.
An episode of Jacob Two Two featured a team of police officers attempting to track down what they thought were "grocery store bandits". After discovering the eponymous protagonist and fellow grade-school friend outside a grocery store at night, the skinnier officer comments that "It's the little ones you have to look out for" right before downing half a box of donuts.
Nibbles/Tuffy from Tom and Jerry has this as his main trait in his early appearances. Often he swallows items whole, briefly taking their shape.
Sometimes used with Ferb from Phineas and Ferb. It's not so much that he eats a lot, but if he doesn't eat, he can get a little crazy.
In an episode of KingoftheHill Hank's fat friend Bill enters a hotdog eating contest because he's a fast eater, near the middle Dale the skinniest of the group is sick of all the praise Bill gets for it and while mocking him manages to beat Bill in an eating practice round.
An episode of Hey Arnold had the titular character entering an eating contest which he had training.

Takeru Kobayashi, known to most of the world as "that skinny bastard that always wins the Nathan's Hot-Dog eating competition". Likewise Sonya Thomas, ranked 5th in the world of competitive eating, and is only 105 lbs.
- Their skinniness is not so unusual. Competitive eating requires not just quantity but speed, which means that they train in eating so much in so little time that the stomach really can't even digest it properly because the body gets so preoccupied with shoving everything through so the pipes don't get clogged.
  - I also have heard that the fat is a liability that presses on the stomach, making it feel full sooner.
  - I believe you are referencing what I heard called "The Belt of Fat Theory."
In recent years, Kobayashi was bested by Joey Chestnut.
Barbara Amiel, also known as Lady Black (wife of Conrad Black), once wrote that she had to eat five full meals a day, including double helpings of mashed potatoes, to keep at a normal weight. She's 5 foot nothing and weighs about 100 lb.
James Buchanan Brady, also known as "Diamond" Jim Brady, was a philanthropist and businessman during the late 1800s and early 1900s with a huge appetite. The owner of his favorite restaurant remarked that he was "the best 25 customers I ever had." Dinner might consist of two or three dozen oysters, six crabs, and a few servings of green turtle soup, followed by a main course of two whole ducks, six or seven lobsters, a sirloin steak, two servings of terrapin and a host of vegetables. Breakfast, lunch, and dessert were no less extravagant. In fact, when doctors examined his body after his death, his stomach was six times larger than that of an average person.
Diamond Jim's long-time companion Lillian Russell was a prodigious feeder herself. Tall, beautiful, busty, and talented, Lillian had it all — and ate it all. She easily kept up with Diamond Jim without losing her figure or exercising. It was only after his death, when she stopped eating so much, that she gained weight.
Michael Phelps is known to consume 12,000 calories a day, in comparison to the 2,000 calories of an average man. Of course, he burns it all swimming. He even said himself that he mainly just eats, sleeps, and swims. (And smokes dope.)
The first person to successfully finish a 6lb "96er" burger, advertised as the world's biggest, was a 100 lb 19-years-old woman.
Adam Richmond of Man Vs. Food's job is to go to places with obscenely large quantities of food and eating challenges. This man has a stomach of steel.
- He has thrown the towel on a few occasions.
- This guy is in the thin category? I think he belongs in the other one.
  - But you gotta admit, he's considerably thin for eating so much.
Shrews are tiny little insectivorous mammals that are ranked as the most voracious eaters in the world, having to consume three times their own body weight in insects every day because their metabolism is so fast they would starve to death otherwise.
Anyone with the condition of hyperthyroidism, where the body's metabolism is permanently locked in overdrive mode and the patient would have to eat massive amounts of food to maintain their body weight.
A running gag on ESPN's The BS Report has Joe House, NBA maven, college buddy of Bill Simmons, and Big Eater.
Otto Von Bismarck. Apparently, being a Magnificent Bastard builds up the appetite

Bob from Gungrave is constantly seen eating, usually a drumstick of chicken, and while he is shown as skinny when first introduced in the past, he steadily grows more rotund over the series as his habits catch up with him. After the series returns to the present, it's revealed that he ate so much as to suffer a cholesterol problem that would have killed him or left him a mindless vegetable on life-support if he hadn't become a Superior.
Akimichi Chouji from Naruto, due to his clan's fighting style (and possibly genetics, his dad Chouza is similarly built). Also, being called fat triggers his Berserk Button:
Chouji: I'M NOT FAT! I'M BIIIIIIIG BOOOOOOOOOOONEEEEEEEEEEED!
Fuu from Samurai Champloo does this on a temporary basis when she eats entirely too much. Although it's presented as a sight gag, in one episode a group of thugs searching for her fat form actually failed to recognize her because of it.
Genma Saotome from Ranma ½ is referred to in the series as a glutton, and he seems unable to resist stealing and eating any bit of food that he comes across.
Buccha from Air Gear is a rare Double Subversion. He eats a lot, and appears to be tremendously fat. However, he's only got about 6% body fat; his appearance is due to blood pooling in his stomach from overeating. When he exerts himself, the blood goes to his muscles, and his ridiculously sculpted body is revealed.
Genta in Detective Conan. He is fat, however.
Gluttony from Fullmetal Alchemist. True to his name, he's willing to eat anything or anyone... he does appear fat, though, and overlaps with being an Extreme Omnivore.
Kurita from Eyeshield 21.
Chang aka Cyborg 006 from Cyborg 009. Note that he's a restaurateur with his own business on top of that, and that he also worked in the food industry before being turned into a Cyborg.
In The Prince of Tennis there's an exception to that rule incarnated in Kei Tanishi from the Higa team. Seeing him eat yakiniku made Fuji lose his appetite, and that's saying much.
Kamiya from Speed Grapher.
Ryu from Gatchaman, but even more so his Battle of the Planets counterpart Tiny.

Obelix from the Asterix comic books. Whole wild boars at times.
- But don't call him "fat" out loud if he's nearby.
- In Asterix and Cleopatra, he is asked to cut a huge cake into three portions... he cuts out two portions and the rest of the cake serves as the third portion, which he eats. He then proceeds to pick out the almonds left over on the serving tray as well, which gets him yelled at by Asterix for not showing enough decorum in front of a queen.
Little Lotta.
Garfield
Billy Bunter, a British comic strip character who first appeared in 1908.
Fatty of Class IIB, Bash Street School, from The Beano.
Allfather D'Aronique from Preacher is a rather disturbing exception. Not only is he practically spherical and too heavy to fly in a helicopter, he's bulimic, and has a golden finger-on-a-stick that his servants use during his meals.

Kung Fu Panda: Po eats all the time, but especially when he is upset. That is what makes the climactic dumpling fight so significant; when he finally wins the dumpling and throws it back to his master, it's a welcome sign that he has grown beyond needing that kind of emotional crutch.
- Furthermore, his girth actually turned out to be vital in his fight with the villain Tai Lung. His fat protects his pressure points.
In Yellow Submarine, a denizen of the Sea of Monsters vaccuums up other monsters... it then vaccuums up the submarine...then vaccuums up the background art...then, spotting its own twitching tail, vaccuums itself into nonexistence, leaving the sub slowly spinning in a featureless white void.
Russel the hedgehog from Once Upon a Forest.

The ultimate exception to the rule: the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote (Terry Jones) from the Monty Python feature film The Meaning of Life.
- Baht eet wahz only a wahfer-theen meent...
Bluto, played by John Belushi, in Animal House. Take the cafeteria scene for instance.
Three words: Jabba The Hutt.
- In one of the Expanded Universe comics, Jabba once ate a treacherous henchman alive.
Chunk from The Goonies. In practically every scene he's either eating food, holding food, talking about food, or looking for food. With a Baby Ruth candybar he discovers a shared love of food with Sloth.
A scene in The Nutty Professor 2 shows the Klumps walking like Determinators towards an all-you-can-eat buffet. Sadly, Janet Jackson at the time wasn't exactly out of place in that scene, the family ends up eating everything but the salad.
The "Gluttony" victim of Se7en. It isn't funny. It isn't funny at all.

Most senior Discworld wizards spend their days eating huge meals. Most (but not all) of them are overweight as a result. Exceptions include the Bursar (who mostly lives on his nerves) and Rincewind. Their Hogswatch dinner has something like twenty courses, and is considered something like an Olympic sport.
- It actually seem that a Wizard's competency and power is directly proportional to how much he eats and how big he is. As seem with the Dean on Reaper Man (who is easily the fattest wizard of the book, but has the power to cast three ludicrously powerful spells at the same time with a delay, to explode/implode a parasitic mall... I wish I could make this up) and Rincewind in general.
- Although actually an object, one of the defining traits of the Luggage is that it seemingly eats everything and anything that stands in its way. Just don't ask where all that ends up at, as the characters themselves, who occasionally go to the Dungeon Dimensions (a very bad place), are terrified of wondering.

Lost's Hurley is a compulsive eater and extremely overweight. Since the DHARMA products were discovered in season 2, he has been seen hoarding food and gorging himself at times. This was needed to Scotch Tape the common question of why Hurley was not losing any weight despite being stranded on an island (though some fans still ask it), but also added to the character's Back Story.
- The fact that only about 100 days had passed on the island should be sufficient explanation for most as to why he hadn't lost weight.
  - You'd start to lose at least some weight after over three months without a large food stash.
Friends: Monica Gellar (of Fat Monica fame) was shown to be like this as a child, most likely related to her numerous compulsive tendencies. Her parents were even once shown asking her to eat excess Thanksgiving leftovers when they ran out of space in the fridge and the show presented this as a typical request.
One episode of CSI dealt with a man whose brain did not process "full" signals from his stomach, and therefore constantly felt hungry. If he was not physically restrained, he would eat every morsel of food in the house and continue foraging for more. (He died of a ruptured stomach in the wake of an eating contest.)
Norm from Cheers.
Sylvia Fine on The Nanny.
How come Dora Circe/Pudgy Pig from didn't get on the list until now?

The original two for video games, Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man.
There are a couple of examples among the Pokémon. In particular, Munchlax (It's actually known as the Big Eater Pokemon) and its evolution, one of the greatest examples of this trope EVER, Snorlax. Seriously. Big, always hungry, and capable of devouring whole forests of fruit in less than a day.
- Another Pokémon family, Gulpin and Swalot, are basically living stomachs with expandable mouths that swallow their food whole.
Misaki Kawana from ONE. This is referenced in the doujin fighter game Eternal Fighter Zero with her "High-Speed Lunch" super.
Drang the ogre in Puzzle Quest has five missions where he asks you to procure rare, dangerous monsters for him to eat. One of them, a Wyvern, is requested so that it can kill a Troll he ate that's regenerating in his gut. The fourth one is an ogre, which disgusts your character. When you finish the last mission, Drang joins your party and takes bites out of any Animal-type enemy you face, causing them opening damage.
Kurumi Kasugaoka, from the sadly cancelled Nintendo DS dating sim Hachikoi. Her character page on the website even allows you to feed her!
King Hippo from Punch Out!!. His intro in the Wii game shows him in a field full of ham and tropical fruit; over three cutaways, he eats everything there.
- Bear Hugger of the same series drinks entire gallon jugs of maple syrup at pretty much every meal. He's also fat enough that you can't hurt him by hitting his stomach.
Jasper from Rune Factory.
The titular Fat Princess.
Hanako from Persona 4, also a Gonk that believes she's gorgeous. When she's on a diet, she eats an entire bucket of curry.
The Heavy from Team Fortress 2. He sure does love those sandwviches.
- Well, he certainly needs all those carbs to lug around his 150-kilogram minigun.
Yoshi from Super Mario Bros.

The King of Town from the web cartoon Homestar Runner.

Hyper Hippo from Supermegatopia. Like most speedsters, she has to eat a lot to fuel her powers; unlike most speedsters, she does store the extra energy as body fat (of course, she is an anthropomorphic hippopotamus). There's also the gluttonous canine sorceress Red Stephie from the side comic Crushed: The Doomed Kitty Adventures
Two more webcomic examples: Youko from Muertitos and Tsugumi from Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy. Of course, both comics are drawn by the same author, who has an admitted preference for fat chicks.

Chowder is possibly the biggest eater ever conceived, to the point where its his defining character trait. On several occasions, he's doubled as a Bag Of Holding, able to eat large objects — up to and including an entire fair booth — and spit 'em out later.
Homer Simpson from The Simpsons. Tis no man, 'tis a remorseless eating machine!
Ralph: I heard your dad went to a restaurant and ate everything in the restaurant and they had to close down the restaurant.
Lisa: Hey, my dad may have gained a little weight, but he's not some kind of food-crazed maniac.
(Homer drives by in a stolen ice-cream truck, vigorously stuffing his face)
- As a result, Springfield's "All You Can Eat" restaurants fear Homer greatly.
  - But many food vendors single handedly make their entire living, and pay their childrens' college fees off of just Homer alone, making him a valuable commodity to others.
  - According to Homer Simpson himself, "it's glandular".
- Many other members of the cast are pretty big eaters as well. In fact most of the cast is overweight. Though perhaps not to Homer's level, still notworthy.
  - Police Chief Clancy Wiggum's round body says it all. Although mostly known for his sweet tooth, he's open to a wide range of food including some pretty exotic stuff.
  - Comic Book Guy actually trumps both of the above in terms of sheer size, though this is due to being perhaps the most lethargic man in all of Springfield. And in Springfield...THAT's an acomplishment.
  - The German foreign exchange student Uter is pretty much solely defined by his absolute lust for all things chocolate.
  - Not usually known for his eating habits, there has been some times where Bart has overindulged to great extent.
Broadway from Gargoyles.
Coop from Megas XLR. His enormous appetite matched only by his own enormous size and his loudness in combat is an often used gimmick in the show's comedy. Chances are...he could outeat probably 90% of anyone on this page. I bet he could take Homer...
- Five words: "Lord of the Large Pants".
Cartman from South Park.
Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants.
Chowder, from the eponymous cartoon series.
Froggo from Histeria! is not severely overweight but he is a little pudgy.
Monterey Jack from Chip and DaleRescue Rangers can (and loves to) eat incredible amounts of cheese.
- Zipper falls into this category, too. There is at least one scene in which he tosses an entire apple core almost twice his size down the hatch.
Fizz from Get Ed orders herself three burgers, a basket of fries, a basket of onion rings, and a basket of pickles... and slaps Loogie's hand away when he attempts to take a pickle. Apparently, she intends to eat all of this by herself (her teammates don't even blink, so she must do it pretty regularly). However, she's got a little bit of pudge around her midsection, especially in comparison to her trim teammates.
Fred Flintstone.
Dick Daring is so bad he ate FORTY POUNDS OF ICE CREAM so he could beat his record by one pound A DAY AGO.
Heffer Wolfe from Rocko's Modern Life. He once devoured the entire contents of Rocko's fridge when he wasn't home because he thought it would get cold.
Both Jay and Marty Sherman of The Critic.
Soda Jerk: Our freezer is broken. We need someone to eat 50 gallons of ice cream.
(Marty immediately runs in.)
Soda Jerk: It's Jay Sherman's kid! We're saved!
Eek's girlfriend Anabel from Eek the Cat.
Gina Lash of Angela Anaconda is a big fan of food, to the extent she once started a protest about a flavor of her favorite gelatin ("Jiggly Fruits") having its recipe changed, and as a result of her constant eating is quite pudgy, particularly compared to the stick-thin Gordy Reinhart or, indeed, any of the other kids she hangs out with.

Real Life example: William Bryan. More evident in his fictional counterpart in Inherit the Wind, Matthew Brady. (Brady even dies from eating too much.)
Prader-Willi syndrome (see the CSI example above) is a real condition. Those affected will even eat pet food if nothing else is available.
There is an entire genus of frog that, given the opportunity, will continue to cram itself with food until its stomach ruptures. They are commonly known as Pacman Frogs.
- However, the largest eater on Earth is in fact the caterpillar.
Another Real Life example: Diamond Jim Brady. Take one look at the part of his Other Wiki page showing what he would eat.

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