Can we please rethink fluffy bunnies?

Fluffy bunnies, otherwise known as chubby bunnies or chipmunking, is the upfront game that involves stuffing as many marshmallows into your mouth as possible without gagging or spitting. The objective is to coherently say the phrase ‘fluffy bunnies’ – or something to that effect – with a very, very full mouth. Hilarious right?

Now, I know I’m going to come across like a killjoy, but I really don’t think fluffy bunnies should be a thing. I’m also aware that this will be one of my more unpopular posts, so I might as well go all in: Playing any game with children that 1.) poses a genuine risk to them choking, and 2.) is sincerely discouraged by doctors is just stupid, stupid, stupid.

A worthy risk?

Call me old fashioned, but the idea of restricting the airways of young people by stuffing sweets in their mouth seems to me to be just a little bit odd. The obvious question is why? Why would we play any game that purposely inhibits a child breathing? ‘Because it’s fun, Tim, you weirdo!’ Well, there’s plenty of really fun games around, so why should the fun of this particular game outweigh the risks?

Granted, I’m not a fan of wasteful food games anyway, but I’m happy to really dig my heels in here and be labelled ‘over-protective.’ I certainly do plenty of daft things as a youth leader, but there are some things you just don’t mess with. Surely we can all get together and say that a child’s breathing is one of them?

It’s quite telling that the game grew in popularity in American frat houses as a hazing, often under the influence of copious amounts of funnelled alcohol. However, even after reported deaths from suffocation playing this game – including 12-year-old Casey Fish from Chicago – Christian youth groups continue to play it.

This really freaks me out. We have many fantastic games, and a bottomless pit of creativity in the youth ministry world. Why do we keep needing to roll the dice with this one? It’s degrading, wasteful, and frankly unreasonably dangerous.

When the medics and the youth leaders disagree

Almost every site that recommends this game now comes with safety disclaimers about supervision, appropriate ages, and even the presence of CPR-trained first-aiders. While these things might be true for other games too, the risk of this game isn’t injury, it’s death. Risk of falling or breaking an arm is just not the same as the risk of choking or suffocating.

In the US, two children die every week from choking on food, and it’s the fifth biggest killer of under-fives.

Fatherly reports Surgeon Dr. Christopher Hollingsworth as saying,

Marshmallows tend to be hard to remove from the airway, because of their ability to compress and then re-expand, as well as their texture which does not slide easily in or out of the airway.

And Dr. Zubair Ahmed said,

Children playing games such as Chubby Bunny might sound harmless, but the reality is that they pose serious risks of choking and suffocation… While many parents will understand that the combination of laughter and mouths stuffed with marshmallows is not a safe activity for children, others still do not fully understand the dangers of such choking games.

In contrast, one youth worker told me ‘we’ve played it for years and no one has ever choked’, and another actually said ‘just have a leader around who knows CPR and you’ll be fine.’

Forgive me if I side with the doctors.

The inherent risk with fluffy bunnies is not cuts and bruises, its suffocation. Why would we ever defend this as ‘acceptable’?

But don’t all games come with risk?

Many of our games come with a risk of injury, but we shouldn’t be playing anything where the risk is asphyxiation.

We wouldn’t encourage games that promote putting a hand over a child’s mouth to restrict their breathing, so why would we allow stuffing things into their mouth to the same effect?

Choking is just not an acceptable risk, and it only takes one totally tragic event to change our minds, but by then it’ll be too late. The fact that one of the youth workers I talked to above said  there needed to be a leader around who knew how to resuscitate a child after playing it tells a story.

We can’t eliminate risk from our games, sure. That’s exactly why we have risk-assessments, supervision, training, consent forms, and insurance. We certainly play a few bonkers games in my groups that come with what we believe is an acceptable level of risk. Even football, for instance, obviously comes with a reasonable level of risk. That said, I’ve never seen anyone playing football score a goal and then try to swallow the ball to the encouragement of their youth worker.

Mechanical injury is one thing, but that’s not what we’re risking here. We’re talking about restricting children’s airways – surely this is off limits? What possible reason could we have that’s good enough to exploit a real choking danger for entertainment?

Let’s rethink

I think that there’s only one thing worse than ramming large expanding pieces of confectionery down a child’s throat, and that’s getting them to do it to themselves to the sounds of cheers and ridicule.

At the risk of sounding alarmist and legalistic, could we possibly rethink this game and stop playing Russian Roulette with our kids’ safety?

When something is lodged in our throats causes a blockage, our instinct is to get rid of it. This game forces our young people to fight that instinct and make the blockage even worse. When you add to this laughter and peer pressure, a sudden sharp intake of breath can very quickly turn the game into something immensely more serious. What do you do then – tell them to spit when they can’t even breathe? When their lips start to turn blue do you put your fingers in their mouth to clear the barrier? Will the Heimlich work when the sweets congeal into a gel that  turns to glue in their throats?

What controls could ever make this OK?

If – God forbid – something tragic did ever happen as a result of playing this game, how would we defend our risk-assessment to a parent? What would that conversation even look like? ‘… Yes, I know it seems strange getting children to see who can stuff the most gelatinous sweets into their mouths, but… but… well it’s fun…’

I’m guessing this may rile a few people up. Sorry, I didn’t really mean to but I really feel very strongly about this. A widespread game that poses such a serious breathing risk needs a serious rethink. If youth workers were playing this game with my kids I’d want to know why they were being so caviler with my children’s safety.

‘It’s fun’ or ‘well, none of my kids have ever choked’ or ‘we have people around who know how to resuscitate’ are just not good enough reasons for me. Sorry. Find a new game.

There are plenty of fun games in the world. Check out some of my bonkers ones here. But when it comes to choking, asphyxiation, and suffocation – let’s just rethink it!

Thanks for listening to the rant 🙂