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What to know about the cinnamon challenge and kids
A new dare involving cinnamon is gaining popularity with kids and young adults, but it's not as harmless as it seems.
Fri, Sep 17 2010 at 10:03 AM
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Photo: S Diddy/Flickr
Cinnamon has several health benefits. When added to oatmeal or baked into a scone or sprinkled into coffee or tea, it’s a great source of manganese, fiber, iron and calcium. It’s believed to help with anti-clotting abilities, help stabilize sugar levels for those with Type 2 diabetes, lower bad cholesterol, and fight infections.
None of these reasons, though, are why kids and young adults are encouraging their friends to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon without water. The cinnamon challenge, in which has one person challenges another to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon without water in under a minute, is sweeping the Internet. Often, the one posing the challenge will make a bet, and some unsuspecting friend or frenemy can’t resist what they think will be an easy five bucks. Other people, however, know exactly what will happen and do it anyway.
This video shows what usually happens when someone tries to eat the cinnamon. Videos like these are plastered all over YouTube and a website called CinnamonChallenge.com. A search for “cinnamon challenge” on YouTube resulted in 5,340 videos. (Warning: Someone drops the F-bomb at the end of the video.)
You may be wondering if there are any dangers associated with the cinnamon challenge. Well, there’s the danger of making an absolute fool of yourself, allowing your friends to video it and put it on online, and then having a future possible employer find the video and think, “This one’s not so bright. I don’t think I want to hire her.”
What about health dangers? According to Healthcare Professional Homepage, there may be some.
- If the cinnamon gets inhaled instead of swallowed or spit out, it could cause severe chest pain.
- Choking could occur if the dry powder gets caught in the throat.
I couldn’t find any information about anyone suffering long-term health problems from the cinnamon challenge, and there don’t seem to be any reports of any deaths. Still, it seems like a bad, possibly dangerous idea. If your kids start talking about taking the cinnamon challenge, you should probably discourage it.
Also on MNN: Can the cinnamon challenge kill you?
The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.
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DO NOT DO THIS CHALLENGE I REPEAT DO NOT DO THIS CHALLENGE ! THE CINNAMINE CAN GET CLOGHED UP IN YOUR THROGHT AND YOU CAN DIE OR IF YOU DO THIS CHALLENGE YOU CAN THROW UP AND PLUS THIS DARE IS STUPID DO I A DIFFERENT DARE IM WARNING YOU IM NINA AND I APROVE THIS MESSAGE
Iv seen someone actually complete if before its not imposable and iv tried it but failed it kinda sucked and i coughed a lot but Im happy i actually did it now
I have a spoon full of cinnamon everyday, but I chase it with a spoon full of honey. No big deal. It tastes great too.
I'm guessing all of you that are doing this, and the ones that say they are going to try this. You all must be children, or very immature people. This is just stupid, not only dangerous, but just plain stupid. Not sure what else to say about that.
What I noticed in the video was that there was only one adolescent girl dumb enough to try this, and a whole lot of adolescent males.
I also noticed that it is mostly young girls doing it, after watching about 2 hours of youtube videos. why do our young ladies feel so insecure that they have to prove themselves. We need to be instilling self confidence in our young women, not that they need to wear make-up, barely any clothes, and look like a model.
a bunch of people at my school tried it at lunch...their reactions were..... HILARIOUS! After they got water to spit out the cinnamon they came back to everyone and told them that its not funny and that they "almost'' died cuz they couldnt breath.....lol i wanna try this now x3
where the heck were the lunch monitors??????
you relize it says without water not without a drink
I really want to try this now, but I super scared.
Me and a friend tried it.. Its kinda fun. But unconfortable.
I wouldn't be scared, not at all..
What a terribly useless article. It's bad, and you should feel bad for writing it. Intellectual dishonesty, much?
Cinnamon*
Don't do this my friends sister died for choking on it
Eh, my friend made me do it and I started choking. I couldnt breath for like a minute. It took three bottles of water to make me stop coughing.. :\
I slapped her really hard after I had recovered. Its not worth the pain.
I dont know.....Should i do it?
yes
We just saw this guy.... almost do it. It looked painful, but it was SO funny!!
Sounds like someone made an article dissing something they very much did not enjoy
what im trying to say is sounds like YOU LOST.
I tried it and failed. It instantly dries all the saliva in your mouth and you can't swallow it. when you try to, you get choked. It did stick in my throat but I managed to eventually, with the help of lots of water, get the taste out of my mouth in a couple of days. lol The damage wasn't permanent but I couldn't imagine getting that crap in your lungs!! That would be bad!!
I just did this, it's not as bad as i thought it would be, it didnt take tat long and i felt no pain at all. Some of my friends did it, the worst that happened was that a bunch of peoples clothes were covered in cinnamon from missing the sink. I actually enjoyed it a lot.
I did the cinnamon challenge and nothing happened to me! It's just for fun and is highly unlikely that you will get pains from it cause I did it with a group of like 15-20 people and NONE of us got any chest pains/aches or choked... I guess do it at your own risk but I'm just saying you aren't going to get diabetes or die from it for doing it that one time!
Not dangerousnes
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