12 Video Game Characters with Eating Disorders By Ariel Kana [48 more lists]

Here are the 12 video game characters (or types of characters) with self-destructive eating patterns that we have to worry about, what kind of disease they have and why they seriously need our help to get over their addiction, affliction or self-destroying eating disorder.

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1

Pac-Man

EATING DISORDER: BINGE-EATING

Pac-Man is an obvious over-eater with a dependence on a certain kind of pellet. He displays a kind of elation when exposed to a certain kind of pellet, almost like that of consuming a drug. He has such a co-dependent relationship with his food that he cannot work up the courage to confront his regular, every-day bullies unless he's had that kind of (larger) pellet.

The more he eats, the happier he is. Some have blamed the implied drug influence of the Classic NAMCO game, while others simply fear for the type of culture which would eat over 100 tic tacs and then eat some cherries, an entire coke, or a barrage of other carb-heavy fruits/foods.
2

Kirby - Nintendo Universe

EATING DISORDER: BULIMIA NERVOSA, BINGE-EATING

Kirby is known for being a round little ball of love and heroism, but what we don't often talk about is that he's actually a starving Bulimic with a binge-eating problem. He binges on things like fruits the size of his entire bodies, his enemies and often seemingly inedible wooden blocks with semi-attractive packaging (stars.)

Kirby displays some of the most openly and outwardly aggressive eating disorder symptoms from obsession with food, to dependence on it to live. If it wasn't for his Bulimia, he would be dead. Swallowing his enemies and then regurgitating back their fallen foes at them isn't exactly the most mentally healthy "default attack." Some of us like to throw a punch here or there.

The fact that his binging and purging is so explosive and violent is a great marker of the point that Kirby really does have a problem, should find some help, and maybe learn how to defend his Dreamland with something other than his vomit and his friends that let him eat them, so he can them "become" them, like in that cheesy 90s movie "Ravenous".
3

Yoshi - Super Mario Universe

EATING DISORDER SUBMISSIVE, CO-DEPENDENT BINGE-EATING

Yoshi displays an enormous amount of courage, initiative and hero-like care about the well-being of others throughout the entire Mario (and even his very own) video game series. The one thing that's not usually addressed is how (even though he can fly and his boots can kill people, i.e. he has the exact same "powers" as Mario) he eats whatever Mario tells him to gladly, and holds it in until Mario tells him to spit it out.

Anyone who willingly eats, dresses and acts according to other people's wishes/opinions of them clearly has not only a self-esteem issue but problems with their perception of food and its effects on their life and others' opinion of them.

People like this tend to closely adhere to the "you are what you eat" mentality and eat whatever people think they should be eating. Even wearing a saddle for him (even though he could not only defeat, but eat him alive), Yoshi bends over backwards for Mario on a constant basis, and even dies for him, at points in the game (yet miraculously comes back.)

Nobody should dictate what you eat, what you do and what you purge and when, yet Mario does this for Yoshi and nobody seems to care.
4

The Snake from Nokia Cell Phone's "Snake"

EATING DISORDER: FATALLY-NEGLIGENT BINGE EATING

This is one of the most addicting games in the history of gaming... why? Because it was the only game available on the most popular phone in the late 90s/early 2000s. Everyone who was a gamer and had a Nokia always competed over their scores on the famous ""snake"" game, which was basically an apple catching game.

So what makes this an eating disorder? The fact that the snake is never able to really function without these apples, the fact that they're the driving force of his self worth (the points) and the fact that he'll risk his life in order to eat.

Whenever you're eating, you should never be at risk of life or limb, your meals should be a treat and something that you enjoy as you need, not something that you risk your life for. This is the equivalent of running two miles through a live warzone for a McRib (which a lot of us -- read: me -- would actually do.)

The worst, most tragic part about this character, and their condition, is the fact that they keep getting bigger because they eat so much.

The fact that they're so ravenous about those apples makes the snakes so big, and so long, that it drives them to death.

Literally, the purpose of this game is to eat yourself to death all while trying to live as long as is physically possible. Putting the eating to an end is never an option, but putting yourself to death via that eating is the only way this game is ever going to end.
5

Number/Super Muncher

EATING DISORDER: PICA (THE URGE TO EAT NON-FOODS, LIKE DIRT)

Super Muncher is a little green alien/monster creature that serves as the protagonist in a 90s math and grammar learning game series called Super Muncher (where you learn more than just math) and Number Muncher (where you learn math.)

As you learn the different practices of basic elementary school curriculum, you answer the questions so that the Number/Super Muncher can eat them. That's right, this character eats nothing but numbers and concepts. One might say that he doesn't ever even eat real food, just answers and math equations. The thirst for knowledge, is one thing, but it is certainly not enough to power a creature who (eve when he wears a cape) is used to eating such luxuries that he is known by the last name of "Muncher" in a time (anytime before the 90s) where fictional characters were named primarily by their obsessions, hobbies and/or flaws.
6

Rampage

EATING DISORDER: CANNIBALISM, NEGLIGENT PICA

So, another example of just eating whatever's in front of you makes the list with the characters from Rampage (who, when you lose, revert back to a naked person covering their nasty-bits with their hands.)

Obviously exhibiting extreme emotional issues, these monstrous characters rip through entire cities, destroying everything in their path and eating everything in sight.

The characters will eat anything from chicken, to fruit, to even entire human beings in one bite, making them really, really dangerous and emotionally disturbed cannibals.

Although (other) humans are their enemy, these characters will eat anything that's in front of them, even including stuff that's harmful to them like, for example cigarettes, bombs and home appliances (which affects your overall health in the game.)

Since they're at least part human, the fact that they eat people is disturbing and terrifying, but the idea of them eating things like bombs is just plain ridiculous, since it is something that any food-healty and/or body-image aware creature would know NOT to eat.
7

Mighty Mouth from Fast Food (Atari)

EATING DISORDER: DANGEROUS BINGE-EATING, PICA

Mighty Mouth is the set of lips that is your protagonist for the old Atari game titled simply ""Fast Food"".

Mighty Mouth exhibits the properties of not only dangerous binge-eating, but the disease that means that you'll basically eat for the sake of eating, whether it's dirt, f***s or even purple, spoiled pickles.

Fast Food is a game where you eat food and progress to faster, more advanced levels of eating as you go along. How do you know you're progressing? Well, sadly, the indicator (and therefore positive reinforcement in the game) is fueled by the words ""You're Getting Fatter"", which is then supposed to inspire you to keep this trend going.

This is a HORRIBLE message to send to young children and a terrible way to set a precedent of food consumption.

And to top this all off, the purple pickle is something that a Might Mouth can eat 6 OF, that's right 6, before simply burping (and ostensibly getting food poisoning) and then dying (passing out.)

Mighty Mouth needs a better diet, some facial construction surgery, and possibly even a counselor to help him through his self-deterring eating habits.
8

The Zombies from Plants vs. Zombies

EATING DISORDER: SELF-HARMING PICA

The Zombies in Plants vs. Zombies are directly contradicting really the only medical requirement that they display: the necessity to eat brains, and only brains.

Instead of going after people in the woods, in the cities, and possibly other (fresher) zombies, the zombies are eating through an entire series of plants in HORDES. Hundreds of zombies are going in and dying in an effort to eat a small family, eating nothing but plants along the way.

Maybe a pea, soft pumpkins and chili peppers wouldn't hurt them that much if they ate more of what they needed to be eating and starting consuming less (seemingly) harmless plants.

5 people are not worth losing even 100 zombies over (I mean, how many people can really be in that house that's guarded, for some reason, exclusively by Home Alone style lawnmowers?)

So, the zombies exhibit symptoms of an eating disorder where they don't eat what they need to live, but what they are obsessed with and, much like some other characters on this list, are driven by the wrong then: to get the exact food items they want, but not what they need.
9

Simon Belmot - Castlevania

EATING DISORDER: COMPULSIVE, SELECTIVE EATING

As Simon Belmont in the game Castlevania, and throughout the series the only thing that keeps you going through a game, even as you're dying, is food.

Simon's (at first, health) obsession with food items gets him through, emotionally, what would be an otherwise traumatizing experience. Consuming turkey legs primarily, the size of his entire arm served neatly on a plate throughout the game series, he's not only a creature of habit, but of obsession in that he will only pick up food items that correspond to his very specific diet of fowl.

Also, going through his journey, he never stops to have a single vegetable or anything that might actually do him some good. He spends most of his time eating stuff that would kill you in a high stress, high-blood-pressure job that would pretty much guarantee not only uncertainty, but fear.

Also, this kind of counts for ANY game character that primarily eats junk food off the ground: they are destroying entire buildings and often going through entire cityscapes taking stuff as they want/need... why not stop by the market and get something that won't kill you by the time you're 40?
10

The Princesses in Fat Princess

EATING DISORDER: CO-DEPENDENT BINGE EATING, OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE EATING

The entire premise of Fat Princess is basically to play capture the flag, only with living, breathing human beings that will apparently eat anything you tell them to.

The inciting incident of this actually-pretty-fun multiplayer game for the PlayStation Network is the simple act of two princesses from opposing kingdoms finding a field where cakes grow out of the ground. Once the princesses discover that cakes keep growing out of the ground, they become completely and utterly useless (much like most of us would in this same situation.)

Throughout the game, you can feed the princesses cake (or not) in order to make them either heavier (and therefore easier to carry to the other home base) or lighter (by not feeding them.)

Either way, for the days that this war rages on, these princesses are eating nothing but cake, so the real synopsis for this game should read: ""Save the princess that eats way too much cake from herself by rescuing her from the free cake before she kills herself, or clogs her arteries, or simply bursts from too much eating much like a goldfish would."

The weird thing here, though, is that the princesses get skinner when they don't eat cake for a few hours, which finally, once and for all, explains why princes and heroes in video games are always pining after princesses and going through hell and back (sometimes literally) for them -- they will age like wine and will never get fat. With a metabolism like that, it's no wonder that most narrative video games, as a genre, were founded by the idea of finding that genetically perfect mate at all costs and eating like a pig all the way there.
11

Any Game with No Food Power-Ups

EATING DISORDER: ANOREXIA NERVOSA

There's an inherent problem with any game that has characters living through DAYS of survival, hardship, fighting, near-death experiences and journeys without eating a single drop of food. Sure, nobody ever goes to the bathroom in video games either, but we usually see food as a power-up.

Any game that doesn't include any food power-ups (even beat-em-ups like Double Dragon contain food items as power-ups every now and then), since there are so many games where food is central to a character's survival (like it would be in real life), is inherently a game filled with obsessed, crazed and self-hating anorexics.

Left 4 Dead, for example, has people meeting in a safe room, consuming endless amounts of drugs and killing zombies with the adrenaline rush of skydiviing... but doesn't have them eat once: even though they go through a carnival, a city AND a mall at some point, all without stopping to stock up on the important stuff.
12

The Main Character From That Stupid Baby Carrot Game

In "Xtreme Crunch Kart", the newest effort from a national food-board of foods that have existed since the beginning of time, farmers marketing baby carrots to the overall public have funded (kind of like the milkboard did the "Got Milk" campaigns) have decided that it's time that we take this general fruit and vegetable marketing to the next level: THE XTREME LEVEL.

Notice that the game is extreme enough to not even include the "e" in "Xtreme", since the letter "X" does the job for them. That's how bad ass baby carrots are now. If you don't eat baby carrots you're a complete waste of space, wimp and overall dumbass.

If you DO eat them, you're the entire cast of The Expendables rolled into one, brave, woman-melting dude.

Throughout this entire game, no matter where you are, or what you're doing, your primary mode for existing is to not only acquire, but to eat baby carrots.

Just baby carrots.

The whole time.

The fact that this character is obsessed with one kind of food (and the severe iron deficiency that he's going to have to endure if he keeps this up), shows symptoms of obsessive compulsive eating, where your life is based around the next thing you're going to eat.