Mukbang influencer Yingying dies at 24: Did her videos kill her?

Chinese mukbang influencer Yingying, whose real name was Chen Ziyi, has died at just 24, leaving her more than one million followers shocked.

Yingying became known for extreme eating livestreams, where she consumed large amounts of food in front of the camera. Her death has now raised fresh concerns about the physical cost of mukbang content and the pressure creators can face to keep eating for views and sales.

Who Was Yingying?

Known online as “Ganfan Yingying,” Chen Ziyi had built a following of more than one million people through food-focused videos and livestreams.

Her content centered on eating large quantities of food, sometimes as part of livestream sales. According to Chinese media reports, she once said that a single livestream promoting preserved eggs required her to eat around 60 to 70 eggs. She explained that for mukbang creators, eating more could make a livestream more effective, even though the body might not be able to handle it.

But behind the food videos, Yingying had been experiencing serious health problems.

Her Final Video Came Three Days Before Her Death

On August 14, just three days before her death, Yingying posted what became her final video from a hospital bed.

She revealed that she had been hospitalized after her potassium levels dropped dangerously low. She said her blood potassium had fallen as low as 2.3 mmol/L, far below the usual range of roughly 3.5 to 5.5 mmol/L. She also showed signs of recent medical treatment.

Yingying said this was not the first time she had been hospitalized because of low potassium. She linked the problem to her work as a mukbang creator and spoke openly about her long-term habit of inducing vomiting after eating.

Her warning to followers was especially heartbreaking.

She told viewers that making money was important, but that health should always come first. Just three days later, she was dead.

Did Mukbang Videos Cause Her Death?

The circumstances surrounding Yingying’s death have attracted intense attention, but the wording matters.

Her parents announced that she died on August 17, 2026, but did not publicly provide an official medical cause of death. Reports citing a person familiar with the case say she may have suffered cardiac arrest related to prolonged low potassium, but that explanation has not been publicly confirmed by her family or a hospital.

What is known is that Yingying had repeatedly experienced severe hypokalemia and had personally connected her health problems to her eating content and purging.

Doctors say severe potassium deficiency can be dangerous because potassium plays a crucial role in the electrical activity of the heart. When levels become extremely low, potentially serious heart rhythm disturbances and cardiac arrest can occur.

Importantly, doctors have also stressed that simply eating large amounts of food does not automatically cause dangerously low potassium. Repeated vomiting, diarrhea and other ways of losing electrolytes can contribute to severe potassium depletion.

The Dark Side of Extreme Eating Content

Yingying’s story has reopened a difficult conversation about mukbang culture.

The videos can look entertaining on screen, but extreme eating for long periods can place significant stress on the body. In Yingying’s case, her own account suggested that the pressure to continually eat for livestreams was connected to a cycle of overeating and purging.

Chinese media reported that her account had published 169 videos, most of them involving mukbang content, before her social media presence became unavailable after her death.

Her final warning now carries a painful significance. Yingying spent her last days telling viewers that health mattered more than money, after years of creating content built around eating.

At only 24, her death has left fans mourning while also raising difficult questions about how far creators should be expected to push their bodies for online attention and income.