‘Chewing Gum’ Trend Among American Gen Z Men
Expert: “Lack of medical evidence to prove effectiveness”
The atmosphere in the gum market is different from the domestic one
“Try this ‘fitness’ gum for a jaw workout. It’ll sharpen your jawline.”
This is a phrase that an American ‘jawline-specific’ gum manufacturer posted on social media last month while promoting their product. While promoting their gum, they used words like ‘training’ and ‘hard-chewing’ to describe the act of chewing gum as if it were exercise.
Chewing gum every day has become a trend among American Gen Z men (Generation Z, born in the mid-1990s to early 2000s). They even upload videos of themselves chewing gum for 10 minutes every day to their SNS to show the changes they’ve seen over the past month. This is because the so-called “square jaw” is considered an aspirational look among them.
Recently, the New York Times (NYT) also highlighted this phenomenon, saying, “A gum brand that promotes the image of a mature man is explosively increasing in popularity among teenage boys active in American online appearance-related communities.”
The New York Times reported that the gum brand Jawliner promoted its product as a “facial exercise product.” They promoted gum chewing by saying, “Say goodbye to a weak chin and say hello to a sharp jawline,” and “The modern diet, which is centered around soft foods, does not allow for the development of jawlines and facial muscles.”
According to the company, the gum product is sold for $26 (about 36,000 won) for a pack of about 60. The official added that 60% of the buyers are between the ages of 18 and 25. The company has over 17,000 Instagram followers, and is gaining popularity by collaborating with a famous American Gen Z influencer with 180,000 followers.
Can continuous gum chewing change the face shape to a square jaw? Professor Moon Chul-hyun of the Department of Dentistry at Gil Hospital, Gachon University, explained, “It is true that if you repeat a certain movement, the muscles used in that movement will develop,” but added, “This is a general story that applies to any body part.” He explained that there is little medical evidence to confirm the correlation that gum chewing alone can create a square jaw.
However, he advised that “chewing gum is a taboo habit for patients with temporomandibular joint disorders such as herniated discs,” and that “chewing squid can also cause temporomandibular joint disorders, so caution is needed.”
Gum Popularity? Appearance Perception Is the Key
Meanwhile, this gum-chewing craze in the US is showing a contrasting atmosphere with the domestic gum market. This is because the size of the domestic gum market is shrinking. According to the latest statistics from the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT), the domestic gum market has steadily decreased from KRW 321 billion in 2015 to KRW 254 billion in 2020.
The industry diagnosed that this was because there were many foods that could replace gum, such as jellies and chewing candies. In the first half of 2022, when COVID-19 was at its peak, jelly sales at convenience stores CU and GS Retail were already more than four times higher than gum sales, so the sales gap between gum and jelly has been widening for a long time.
Rather, in Korea, there is an atmosphere of avoiding hard foods, including gum, because egg-shaped faces are preferred by both men and women. The popularity of botox, which reduces jaw muscles, is in the same context.
Eun-hee Lee, a professor of consumer studies at Inha University, said, “Depending on the beauty standards pursued by each country, popular industries or consumer goods may differ,” and advised, “Users need to be aware and careful about the tendency for standards of beauty and other evaluation criteria to become more uniform and solidified more quickly due to SNS.”
Kim Young-ri, Hankyung.com reporter smartkim@hankyung.com
