For students at Northern Valley Demarest, gum is like gold. Students at NVD tend to chew gum all day every day in school, making gum out to be something of extreme value among classmates. But, how did it become so popular?
“During school, I chew gum throughout the day no matter what is happening,” junior Leah Kang said. “I bring gum to school because I’m usually bored or hungry and I need something to wake me up throughout the day.”
Students all over the school bring gum, and are often seen chewing it in class or in the hallways.
“Probably everyone in the school chews gum,” junior Gabrielle Rothstein said. “And if one person offers other people gum, everyone would say yes.”
The love for gum also doesn’t pertain to only one grade, or only one time of year.
“I see many people eating it, from all grades, around the school,” junior Danielle Stark said. “I do also think it’s a habit that people can get easily addicted to.”
Often, students share gum with each other, exchanging pieces and flavors.
“My classmates generally have gum, so we share it around,” Kang said. “Most of my
classmates have gum around them, and the NVD Cafeteria also sells Trident gum, and many students buy it.”
While it might seem like a normal, easy way to relieve stress, gum chewing at NVD is actually more of a sticky situation than people think.
“People in NVD are often secretive about their gum,” Rothstein said. “People don’t always want to give others gum because they don’t want to run out.”
Students are often possessive of their gum, hiding it and even lying to others on certain occasions.
“For sure people have lied about not having gum,” Stark said. “It could be because they may not have wanted to share and wanted to save it for themselves, or maybe if they gave it to one person they knew they’d also have to give to everyone else who asked.”
Some students even use gum as a way of payment, exchanging it like money during class.
“One of my classmates asked me for gum almost every day last year, so a few weeks ago she got me a whole 35-pack of gum as a repayment for all of the gum I gave her,” Kang said.
However, gum can actually be disruptive during the school day.
“I believe gum is disruptive in school if the person chewing gum makes it disruptive,” Kang said. “However, if the person is chewing gum silently and doesn’t place it in weird spots then I don’t think it’s disruptive.”
Gum can be stuck in inconvenient places, disrupting non-gum-chewing students and teachers as well.
“A not-so-funny story that I have with gum happened last year when I sat on gum that was stuck on the bleachers,” Stark said. “[It got on] one of my favorite jeans.”
But, how did this fascination with gum start? Students claim that their love for gum started at a young age.
“I think that gum chewing might have started at NVD as a result of gum being [not allowed] in middle school,” Stark said. “People might associate gum chewing in school from back when they went to middle school.”
Gum also serves the purpose of relieving stress, something students seek during school with the amount of work in classes.
“I chew gum when I’m stressed and need to distract my mind from something,” Kang said.
All in all, chewing gum at NVD is relatively common.
“I do think that gum chewing at NVD is a normal thing to do,” Stark said. “[Though it] can be really addicting, it’s something that people crave/desire to use, and people are very cautious about letting others use it.”
