A shocking new study has found a third of childhood burns are caused by scald injuries from cooking instant noodles.
The study, published in the journal Burns, was led by researchers at the University of Chicago. In the study, researchers analyzed data from all pediatric patients, who were admitted with burn injuries due to hot liquids between 2010 and 2020 at the university’s burn center.
“Anecdotally, it felt like every other child we were consulted on for a burn was injured by instant noodles, so we wanted to dive into the data to see what the trend really was,” senior author Sebastian Vrouwe, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine, said, as per ABC7.
Following an analysis of 790 cases of childhood scald injuries, it was found 31% were caused by instant noodles.
“Our hope is to develop the groundwork for future burn prevention programming, as essentially all childhood burns are in some way preventable,” Vrouwe said.
Vrouwe and his team were taken aback by the fact that instant noodles were such a significant cause of childhood burns.
“We were surprised by the sheer magnitude of the problem, which confirmed that focused effort and awareness on these types of burns could have a significant impact in the communities that our burn center serves,” Vrouwe noted.
According to the study, the patients who were Black and from ZIP codes with a lower average childhood opportunity index score had a higher likelihood of getting instant noodles burns.
Instant noodles being a low-cost meal option may be the reason for this trend, researchers posit. As a consequence, “global efforts to address childhood poverty would very likely have positive secondary effects on burn prevention,” researchers wrote.
The average age of children with burns from instant noodles was also slightly more than those with other burn injuries, at 5.4 years. The researchers called it “the age at which children are able to attempt to prepare instant noodles, but not old enough to do so safely.” Moreover, these children were also more likely to be without adult supervision at the time of the injury.
“Direct caregiver supervision is one important step in burn prevention,” Vrouwe said. “The amount of heat contained in these noodles can easily cause second and third-degree burns in anyone, but young children are particularly vulnerable due to their relatively smaller bodies and thinner skin.”
Another skin reaction called margarita burn was in the news when an 8-year-old boy learned the hard way that even a simple gesture of touching limes could lead to painful burns.
A margarita burn or phytophotodermatitis is a skin condition from contact with light-sensitizing botanical substances in plants. When the substance is exposed to ultraviolet radiation, it forms a skin irritant that causes a rash leading to subsequent blisters, as per Medscape.