Last month, Kelly Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos were celebrating International Pineapple Day on their morning show, Live with Kelly and Mark. During their taste-testing, Kelly brought up how much she hates eating in front of other people, especially when she’s on TV. Well, Kelly may not like chewing her food in public, but it turns out that she’s a prolific gum chewer. Or rather, she used to be. While discussing something called “chewing facial fitness gum,” which is apparently a thing amongst teenage boys who are trying to get “chiseled jawlines,” Kelly laughed and shared that those kids don’t need to spend money on specialty gum. As it turns out, Kelly is somewhat of an expert in that subject. She used to chew so much gum that her doctors recommended she quit because her jawline was apparently becoming “too developed.”

On Live with Kelly and Mark this morning, Kelly Ripa chewed out a trend among teen boys of “chewing facial fitness gum to get chiseled jawlines,” but only because regular gum will seemingly do the trick.

Sharing her amusement by the fad, she continued, “And let me tell you something. You don’t need facial fitness gum. You can just chew gum!”

Alongside Mark Consuelos, Ripa recalled her own experience with having to let go of gum.

“Because as you know, my dentist, years ago, made me quit gum because my jawline was becoming so developed,” she explained, “that he said, ‘Do you want to look like Mark?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I mean, Mark is handsome! I’d like to be a handsome woman!’”

However, her jaw — or as Consuelos put it, her “mandibles” — was becoming so developed that she ultimately made the decision to “quit the gum,” which she said was “hard” to do.

“It was my favorite thing to chew,” she added.

Consuelos chimed in, acknowledging that “there is tougher gum to chew.”

“Is that what this fitness gum is?” he asked.

Ripa replied, “I guess so, but I think all gum does the same thing. You chew it, and it develops your mandibles,” which elicited a chuckle from Consuelos.

She also issued a warning to avid gum enthusiasts in order to save them from the same facial fate.

“So just beware, gum chewers out there. You could wind up with a square head like me,” she joked.

[From Decider]

What the what?! I have some thoughts about what Kelly said, but one thing at a time. My first impression was that chewing gum to chisel your jawline is not a thing, so I went to Dr. Google, which confirmed that there is no actual evidence that chewing gum can give you a more defined jaw. Then, I went to Amazon and found the Facial Fitness brand gum that’s all the rage. It’s $30! That is bonkers. Someone, please, tell the kids that they’re alright. Save your teeth, not your jawline.

As for Kelly’s claim, how much damn gum was she chewing that her doctors were more worried about its effects on her jaw over what it was also doing to her teeth? She must have been spending so much of her day chomping away that she was getting head and jaw aches. That’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense. Woof. So much to unpack with this one. I’m glad Kelly’s listening to her dentist’s advice and laying off the gum. I wonder what she’s doing instead.

Photos credit: Darla Khazei / Avalon, Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Robin Platzer / Twin Images / Avalon