Content Warning: the following article contains a discussion on eating disorders.
A Chinese content creator known for videos of herself eating huge amounts of food has died at 24, three days after she posted a clip from a hospital bed urging her followers not to neglect their health.
Chen Ziyi, who went by the name Ganfan Yingying online, died on August 17, according to an obituary her parents posted on September 4. The notice said she was born on March 24, 2002, but did not state a cause of death.
Chinese media reported her death the following week. Her case has since drawn a round of warnings from doctors there about the toll that eating content can take on the people who make it.
Her final video went up on August 14. She filmed it from the hospital, explaining to viewers why her uploads and livestreams had slowed down. Eating that much, that often, had pulled her potassium down, she said, and she had been admitted for it.
"Although making money is important, health should always come first," she said in the video, as quoted by the Global Times.
She told viewers her blood potassium had gone down to 2.3 millimoles per liter. Anything below 3.5 is considered low.
Ganfan Yingying had more than a million followers, with some outlets placing the figure at around 1.2 million. She built that audience on sheer volume, posting videos of herself finishing quantities of food in one sitting that most people would not get through in a week, including seafood spreads and preserved duck eggs. Reports said short-video platforms pulled down her accounts on the evening of September 7.
Mukbang is a video or livestream where the host eats a large amount of food while chatting with viewers. It began in South Korea, and the name comes from two Korean words put together, one for eating and one for broadcast. The format spread across Asia and now has a steady following here at home, where Filipino creators post everything from lechon and seafood boodle fights to fast-food hauls.
Hypokalemia, the condition she named in her last video, is what doctors call it when potassium in the blood runs too low. Potassium is one of the minerals the heart relies on to keep a steady beat. Let it fall far enough and the heart can start beating irregularly. In severe cases, it stops.
Her parents did not say what killed her. Chinese outlets, citing sources, have reported that prolonged low potassium may have led to cardiac arrest. That has not been officially confirmed.
Doctors quoted in Chinese reports have been careful about one point: the eating alone does not drain potassium from the body.
Dr. Chai Qichen of Zhejiang Hospital told the Global Times that finishing enormous meals is not what causes the mineral to bottom out. The damage comes from what some creators do afterward to avoid gaining weight, namely making themselves throw up and taking laxatives. Both push fluid out of the body fast, and potassium goes with it.
The stomach and intestines hold a good deal of the body's potassium supply. Empty them again and again, and the level in the bloodstream drops faster than food can replace it.
Ganfan Yingying had said her condition was linked to her mukbang work and to a habit of vomiting after filming that went back years, according to reports. She had been hospitalized for low potassium more than once before.
Her death has renewed an argument in China that has been running for years now, about extreme eating content and how far young creators feel they have to go to hold an audience.
• If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder or thoughts of self-harm, help is available. The National Center for Mental Health crisis hotline can be reached at 1553, toll-free from any landline nationwide.