Why Are Americans Giving Up Gum-Chewing?

Why aren’t Americans as interested in chewing gum as we used to be? Is it that we don’t want to spend the money, we have better ways to freshen our breath, it’s simply falling out of favor as a habit, or some combination of these factors? Are there simply not as many people around who are in the process of quitting smoking as there used to be?

I fell out of the habit when I had braces, and never picked it back up. The falloff in gum-chewing has been even more recent than that, though: industry experts say that sales have fallen 11% in the last four years. You can’t blame economic factors: sales actually peaked in 2009 after the economic meltdown.

Maybe it’s just not as accepted as it once was. Not that some people ever thought it was acceptable to begin with. Especially people in the janitorial, maintenance, and etiquette fields. “My grandmother used to tell me, ‘You look like a cow chewing cud,’” Lizzie Post, great-granddaughter of etiquette icon Emily Post, told the Associated Press.

CHEW ON THIS: GUM LOSES ITS POP (Thanks, Mindy!)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist