Why Is Gum Banned at School? Should it Be? 

Gum is banned at schools because it can make a mess, distract other students, or even become a hygiene problem. But there are many advantages to chewing gum: it can help you concentrate, soothe your stomach, relieve stress, and even increase memory, so should it be banned?

Gum is very helpful and has many positives that seem to outweigh the negatives. For example, many students like chewing gum because it helps them concentrate in class. A seventh grader said, “I chew gum because it helps me concentrate in class and it makes me not hungry.” A lot of students are also embarrassed when their stomachs growl in class, and chewing gum solves that problem, which results in a perfectly calm class where you can just focus and pay attention. This could mean higher grades for students.          

Chewing gum is one of the best things you can do to relieve stress.  Most people agree that chewing gum can make you feel calmer.  It can also relieve muscle strain. According to the AIS (The American Institute of Stress), “More recent studies have shown that chewing gum reduces muscular tension and anxiety, especially in people who are trying to stop smoking or lose weight. There is little doubt that chewing gum can be a powerful stress buster.”  This shows that chewing gum has many benefits such as calming your muscles and reducing stress and anxiety.  You can see a real-world example of this in baseball. Most professional baseball players such as Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, and Randy Arozarena chew gum during games to relieve stress.  Alex Rodriguez, a successful professional baseball player, said this in an interview, “Of all the things that I would have the hardest adjustment with — as baseball players, we’re very superstitious — but not chewing gum while playing baseball, I would be awful,” he confessed. “I mean, that would be a real scorebreaker for me. I probably went through about 36 pieces of gum every game I played.”

On the other hand, gum can cause distractions. Wouldn’t it distract you if someone was chewing their gum really loud during a test? Hearing someone chew gum in class can make it more difficult for other students to pay attention. Besides the distractions, it can also be like really gross to find gum on the bottom of every desk. An eighth grader thinks that “Gum is bad to chew in class because it's distracting and can make a really gross mess.” Gum can be distracting if students chew it loudly and blow bubbles. When asked why gum is banned, Mr. Alemeida said, “Because students don’t dispose of it. Some leave it on the floor and some leave it in a special place for teachers to find.” This shows that gum can make a mess. However, even though some students don’t dispose of gum properly,  this problem can be solved easily. Most students probably leave gum on the floor because they can’t get up to throw it away. So if the school lets the students throw it away, we won’t have that problem.

Not everyone agrees that gum should be banned at school. Some argue that the positives of chewing gum definitely outweigh the negatives. What do you think?