Chewing Gum to Walk Faster and Burn More Calories?

After bursting bubbles that chewing gum is not our next great weight loss answer, I was sent internet articles, such as these. This one even claims that walking and chewing gum, a feat in and of itself, could help men lose weight, apparently just before the next hurricane.

They all refer back to this recent research study where 46 adults completed two walking tasks.¹ In the ‘experimental’ task, they walked at a natural pace for 15 minutes while chewing two pellets of apple flavored gum. In the ‘control’ task, they again walked at a natural pace for 15 minutes after ingesting a powder dissolved in water containing the same ingredients as the gum.

Using a sensor to measure their walking cadence, they found that overall, there were no differences in walking distance, speed, number of steps taken or energy expenditure.

Okay, wait, why did all the media articles claim there was a difference?

Well, if we look a bit closer we see that there were 26 middle-age to elderly participants. On average, the 12 men, but not the women, appeared to have walked just under 4 meters or 2 steps per minute faster while chewing gum, thus walking 50 meters or about 54 yards further over the 15 minutes. This effect was not seen in any other group.

Despite walking a hair faster (about .12 mph), they only expended 1.7 more calories on average over the entire 15 minutes, and good thing too, because it at least helped them burn off almost 30% of the extra 6 calories they ingested from the gum.

So, while the authors’ conclusion that, “The present study demonstrated that gum chewing during walking had a measurable effect on physical and physiological functions,” is technically true, it makes the effect sound better than it really is - perhaps for the gum manufacturer who provided the funding for the study.

We conclude, however, that the actual effect of gum on walking speed is minimal, but plausible, and any meaningful calorie burn or weight loss is unlikely.

So much for the proposed claims of famous ‘chewwalkers’, Benny Hill and Charlie Chaplin.

#chewwalker

References

1. Hamada, Y., Yanaoka, T., Kashiwabara, K., Kurata, K., Yamamoto, R., Kanno, S., ... & Miyashita, M. (2018). The effects of gum chewing while walking on physical and physiological functions. Journal of physical therapy science, 30(4), 625-629.