The New Squishy Dumplings

By: Grace Zhang

Recently, the new viral squishy dumplings have been proved to be dangerous. I believe that the toymakers that produce the squishy dumplings are responsible.

There has been a brand-new trend since the Labubu: Squishy dumplings! These cute little dumpling toys are made for stress management and are practically everywhere. But wait, these innocent little toys might be more dangerous than they seem. The dumplings have been proven to be dangerous by scientists.

Why are these toys dangerous? Well, they emit high levels of VOC (gases) like dimethylformamide. Why does this matter? If you inhale these gases, it can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness, and respiratory issues.

This isn’t the first dangerous trend, there have been several such as the Needoh trend. Needohs are sort of like the dumpling squishies. Toys ment for stress relief turned dangerous. This time it wasn’t since the toy itself was dangerous, it was because of the trend of putting them in the microwave. Several accidents happened and Needoh had to send out an official report saying to not microwave them.

A reporter for the Toronto Star, Kevin Jiang, along with Dr. Paul Bozek, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health decided to run some tests. They put the little toys next to monitors and they detected 4 possibly harmful chemicals. There have also been other people doing similar tests. There was a dad that went viral online for testing the chemicals in the dumplings. He found that there were “More chemicals than in a can of paint.” These chemicals are linked to diseases such as cancer.

You might be thinking, “Well those might be fakes. The real ones are 100% safe.” If you were, then you would be wrong. The ones that have been tested are genuine. In one case, they had even more dangerous chemicals than the off-brand versions. Even if you buy the name brand kinds, there are still dangerous chemicals inside of them. Many people also believe that platforms such as Tiktok or Youtube are to blame since people have been posting on those websites about how great the dumpling squishies are. Tiktok doesn’t know that these things are dangerous. Others blame the influencers, but the influencers also don’t know that these stress-releasing fidgets are dangerous.

What can we do about this? Well, I think that the companies who make the dumplings are to blame. The content creators whom make the content about the dumplings don’t know that the products are dangerous. Platforms such as Youtube or Tiktok can create a feature like the AI feature. When you scroll to an AI video, there is a symbol that says the video was created by AI. Instead it could say “This product is dangerous.” A better solution is for the company who makes the dumplings to change their ingredients to make them less toxic.

So, instead of just standing around and waiting for change, let’s fix this problem! We can speak to representatives for the platforms that these toys blew up on, and encourage the toymakers to change their ingredients.