No longer will teachers have an excuse for not letting kids chew gum during class. Fox News is reporting that a study released at the annual meeting at the American Society for Nutrition scientific meeting in New Orleans claims that chewing gum can lead to higher math grades.
The study which was conducted by Baylor College of Medicine, says that gum chewing reduces stress, creates alertness and relieves anxiety which in turn, could produce higher test scores.
“For the first time we’ve been able to show in a real-life kind of situation that students did perform better when they were allowed to chew,” said executive director of the Wrigley Science Institute, Gil Leveille who claims teachers should get used to gum chewing during school hours. “It’s not a matter of chewing. It’s a matter of gum disposal. We’ll have to provide the janitors with scrapers.”
The study which was sponsored by the Wrigley Science Institute observed over 100 teenage students in Houston, Texas throughout a period of 14 weeks. Half of the students were not given gum during lessons, the other half chewed sugar-free gum 86 percent of the time during math classes and and 36 percent of the time during math homework. Results showed that the students who chewed gym had a 3 percent higher scores than those who didn’t.
The researchers say that teachers also noticed that students who chewed gum during class had better concentration and required fewer breaks in between lessons.
According to EMaxHealth, another recent study by the University of Leeds in England is also claiming that gum chewing can also help control food and sugar cravings as well as promote a feeling of fullness. The study suggests that chewing gum following any meal will reduce the craving for snacks.
The study which included 60 adults found that those who chewed gum following a meal reduced the weight of a snack by 10 percent compared to those who didn’t chew.
“It consumers could satisfy cravings and feel less tempted by high energy snacks, gum may be a useful adjunct to weight control,” said Marion M. Hetherington, researcher at the institute of psychological sciences at the University of Leeds.
