Nikocado Avocado, who has 3.9 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, began his latest video—entitled “Two Steps Ahead”—wearing a panda costume head. But this wasn’t his typical “muckbang” video. Instead, Avocado seemed to guac his fans’ worlds with what he then said and did. After removing the panda head, Avocado revealed how things about him haven’t exactly been “black and white.”
Avocado, who is Ukrainian-American and has declared himself as the “King of Mukbangs,” had indicated that he weighed 359 pounds in a YouTube video seemingly from earlier this year. Keep in mind the word “seemingly.” Avocado wasn’t the originator of the whole “mukbang video” thing and there is no official mukbang royalty. The mukbang trend had originated in South Korea but has since spread kind of worldwide. Such videos feature people eating large amounts of food on camera like the last video before the “Two Steps Ahead” one uploaded on Avocado’s YouTube channel seven months ago. That one showed him feasting on a mountain of spicy cheesy fire noodles.
So, if you’re a fan of Avocado’s channels, you probably expected the next video to simply show him as his usual self feasting on another set of food items. But that would be getting ahead of yourself. Instead, in his “Two Steps Ahead” video uploaded on Friday, Avocado toasted what he described as “the greatest social experiment of my entire life.” He then removed his panda head to reveal a seemingly much lighter version of himself than what fans had gotten accustomed to seeing, as you can see here:
In this video, Avocado explained, “Today, I woke up from a very long dream and I also woke up from having lost 250 pounds off of my body.” He continued by saying, “Yet, just yesterday, people were calling me fat and sick and boring and irrelevant, people, people are the most messed up creatures on the entire planet.”
Now, this weight loss likely didn’t occur overnight. That would have been kind of impossible. Instead, in another video in another of Avocado’s channels, Avocado admitted, “I haven’t made a video for like two years.” So, it looks like a number of his videos posted over the past year or two may have been pre-recorded in advance. Only Avocado knows for sure his timeline for losing weight and what approach he used. I’ve reached out to Avocado for further comment.
One of the things that the “Two Steps Ahead” video ended up highlighting is the ongoing problem of fat shaming, which is when one ridicules others about their body weight. It’s indeed a shame how common fat shaming remains in our society. Just jump on to social media or listen to what some politicians keep saying and you’ll find plenty of examples. That’s why The Roundtable on Obesity Solutions organized by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine has had to continue addressing this problem and the problem of weight stigma, in general.
Weight stigma arises from the major misconception that obesity is simply the result of lack of control, eating too much and moving around too little. In actuality, many people struggling with obesity are very careful about what they eat and maintain very disciplined exercise regimens and lifestyles. The fact is people can differ significantly in what’s inside and outside them. Different genetics, physiologies, social situations, environments, economic conditions and other factors can substantially affect one’s body weight and composition over time.
That being said, while mukbang videos can be entertaining, you probably shouldn’t be using many of them for regular dietary guidance. That would be kind of like using the movie Deadpool and Wolverine for exercise regimen or career guidance. Many mukbang sequences do feature portion sizes that are way too large and far to much added salt, sugar and other stuff.
Plus, it can be hard to tell whether the person in the video really ended up eating everything shown. What you see on YouTube videos don’t necessarily represent reality. And Avocado’s “Two Steps Ahead” video is further evidence of that.
