(PCM) Listen up parents! This is one of the many reasons you should be monitoring your children’s activity on social media platforms. The salt and ice challenge has once again resurfaced and is sending children to the hospital with serious skin burns all across the country. What may seem like two harmless household items, when placed together have the ability to cause a very serious skin reaction.
Salt has the ability to lower the temperature of ice and melting water to about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, so when teens are placing salt on their skin and then holding an ice cube on top, it is causing them to receive some very nasty skin burns. The kids are challenging each other via social media to see who can hold the ice and salt on their skin the longest and then sharing the videos across the net.
Many of the children participating in the salt and ice challenge feel that it is all harmless fun and games and fail to realize that they could ended up with scars on their bodies for the rest of their lives. They are not going to get proper medical attention until it is way too late and the damage has already been done. Teens will record the challenges and then post pictures or video to social media for proof or attention and to compete with their peers. One YouTube video posted of the challenge has over 7 million views.
Parents should be on the lookout for warning signs on their children’s arms or leg such as bruises or markings that look like burns. The salt and ice challenge falls into the same category as other ridiculous online challenges such as the cinnamon challenge where one has to swallow an entire spoonful of ground cinnamon in less than a minute or the gallon-of-milk challenge where one must consume an entire gallon of milk in less than an hour. You can only imagine how well those turn out in the end!
When will these silly challenges ever come to an end!