Chewing gum consumption in the United States among children, adolescents and adults

ABSTRACT

Data regarding chewing gum consumption habits and attitudes were collected for 963 children and adolescents (aged 6–14) and 3150 adolescents and adults (aged 13 years+) in the United States (U.S.) using a dedicated online food frequency questionnaire. A total of 79.6% of children/adolescents reported using chewing gum in the last 3 months, whereas 61.8% of adolescents/adults chewed gum in the previous 6 months. The mean and 90th percentile of consumption among children/adolescents aged 6–14 were 1.95 and 4.71 g day⁻¹, equivalent to 0.75 and 1.78 pieces per day, respectively. Stratification by gender and age brackets revealed that the consumption of chewing gum was more heavily reported in boys compared to girls. Among adolescents/adults aged 13 years and older, the mean and 90th percentile of consumption of chewing gum was estimated to be 2.98 and 7.67 g day⁻¹, or 1.05 and 3.00 pieces per day, respectively. Stratification by gender and by age brackets in this cohort did not reveal any marked patterns although it was noted that there was a decrease in the percent consuming with age (from 87.0 to 34.5%). The most commonly reported chew frequency among all ages was ‘two or three times a week’ (23.7 to 26.8%). The average and high-level estimates reported herein provide up-to-date estimates of chewing gum consumption in the U.S. Comparisons of the calculated intake values with those reported from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey dataset suggests that national nutrition surveys may result in an under-reporting of the percent consumers, but similar estimates for the daily intakes in g day⁻¹.

KEYWORDS:

• Chewing gum
• dietary survey
• exposure assessment
• United States
• food additives
• online questionnaire
• intakes

Acknowledgments

Food frequency questionnaires were reviewed and administered by Nielsen Consumer Insights North America (http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights.html) and Kantar WorldPanel (https://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global) in conjunction with Intertek and ICGA. The ICGA provided direction and guidance to the study, as well as financial support for the work involved. Ashley Roberts and Maryse Darch (Intertek) provided guidance/input on the content of the final manuscript. None of the authors declares any interests that may conflict with the provision of their solely scientific input to the report.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the International Chewing Gum Association;