Food challenges, such as the gallon challenge or the Saltine cracker challenge, are specific challenges or competitions involving food. Milk chugging is a popular competitive eating challenge on college campuses, and was promoted in the late 1990s.
With the rise of the Internet, Internet phenomena have increasingly spread though chain emails and social media, encouraging people to "challenge" their friends by spreading the message on, creating viral Internet memes.
Some "challenges" on the internet can seriously harm participants. The cinnamon challenge, a dare to attempt to eat a specified amount of ground cinnamon within a minute, has a strong risk of people gagging on cinnamon inhaled into the lungs. In July 2015 a four-year-old boy died of asphyxiation after ingesting cinnamon.