Medical professionals are warning against a new TikTok trend that has caused severe burns in children.
Officials at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Boston say kids have been getting seriously injured trying to recreate a scene from the popular Netflix movie, K-Pop Demon Hunters, in which some of the characters slurp delicious-looking ramen noodles, the hospital wrote in a press release.
Viral videos, with hashtags like #KPopNoodleChallenge and #DemonHuntersRamen, show people eating Korean instant noodles as the trend encourages TikTok users to eat ramen like the characters in the movie do.
However, doctors are saying that the tall, narrow containers that instant ramen comes in can easily be knocked over by smaller children, who could be seriously burned as a result.
“Water boils at 212 degrees, and the design of these cups makes them extremely easy to tip over. When they do, the hot broth and noodles spill onto the skin,” said Dr. Colleen Ryan, an associate surgeon, at Shriner’s Children’s Boston.
While adults can receive second-degree burns from just five seconds of exposure to hot water at 140 degrees, children have much thinner skin, making the temperature threshold for injury even lower.
“The noodles are sticky and retain heat, which means these noodle soup burns can be deeper and more damaging than a simple hot water scald,” Ryan added.
Medical professionals say they have noticed an increase in children injured as a result of hot soup or noodles spilling on them.
“We’ve definitely had patients that have had to stay in hospital with us as a result of hot soup and hot noodles falling on them,” Jason Bresky, a registered nurse and Trauma and Burn Injury Prevention and Outreach Coordinator at Bridgeport Hospital, told NBC Connecticut.
Bresky urged parents and guardians to help their young children understand the dangers that come with cooking hot food, especially liquids like soup.
“Just as much as you wouldn’t let a child play with a stove, you shouldn’t let your child play with a microwave, and things that come out of the microwave hot,” Bresky said.
A decade-long study from the University of Chicago revealed that instant noodles cause one-third of all childhood burn injuries.
It’s not the first time a viral trend caused children to suffer from burns, according to Shriners. Last year, the “DIY Tanghulu” trend of making candied fruit using boiling sugar resulted in dozens of children being hospitalized with second- and third-degree burns.
“This trend continues to gain traction in 2025, as eight patients have been treated at Shriners Children’s Boston so far this year,” hospital officials wrote in the release.
Meanwhile, Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters became the streaming giant’s most-viewed movie ever last month, with over 236 million views at the end of August. The movie follows popular K-pop girl group HUNTR/X as they lead a double life as hunters battling a rival boy band, the Saja Boys, who turn out to be demons.
In the film, several of the characters enjoy delicious-looking ramen noodles out of cups. As a result, Nongshim, the Korean instant noodle brand behind Shin Ramyun, dropped an official K-Pop Demon Hunters collaboration last month, much to the joy of fans, Forbes reported.
Noodles produced in the partnership feature colorful designs inspired by the film’s characters and quickly sold out on the Nongshim Mall online store. The Independent has contacted Nongshim USA for comment.
In the case of a burn, medical professionals advise the injured to remove all clothing from the burned area and apply cold tap water – not ice – for at least 20 minutes. If necessary, call 911 or seek medical help.
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