Eating Non-Foods (PICA)

What Is Pica?

This is when someone consistantly eats objects that are not normal foods. For example, things like leaves, mud, paper, cigarette butts.

Pica is more common in people that are brain damaged or have a mental handicap.

Can It be Treated?

Yes.

Simple measures such as keeping the person away from the object(s) that they eat should be tried first.

If the simple measures don't work, then a doctor or specialist may recommend some simple techniques that are derived from behavioural therapy. These are things like setting up a chart where the person is rewarded with a gold star for every day/night they go without eating the object.

More serious cases, often these are combined with a set of other problems, may require more intensive forms of intervention, usually from a specialist.

For example, if a person is eating cigarette butts they may well have become addicted to the nicotine contained in them. It usually takes an intensive intervention to be able to help them. If you can, think of this particular example as giving up smoking. This is hard enough for adults that know the dangers that smoking presents. But a child, or mentally handicapped person probably has no idea that it is bad for them. This makes it even more difficult.

Finally, pica nearly always disappears in children as they get older. It is much more difficult to treat in those people with brain damage or mental handicap.

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