Pica is a disease which has the main trait of eating non-food products. Gerald Callahan (2013) wrote an article called “Eating Dirt” which discusses the immunological effects of the pica of eating dirt. There are various types of non-food items people consume that show abnormal behaviour. There are numerous health risks and issues with people eating food not intended to being eaten and in contrast there are also benefits to people from eating certain picas. There are multiple possibilities as to why people eat non-food items. In modern culture there are a variety of picas that are present.
A pica may be eaten in many different forms. Callahan (2013: 164) suggests the idea of eating dirt for children and even for people later in life as most foods have traces of dirt in it. He explains the trend of toddlers consuming dirt and in western cultures it being looked down on. People who consume large amounts of non-food items are often referred to as diseased or abnormal. To be labelled as diseased for eating dirt it is defined that you must consume more than 50 grams of dirt per day. The idea of non-food items being consumed as abnormal behaviour is expressed further by Sharma (2011: 2375) who explains the case of an elderly dementia patient eating her own feces and she was admitted to a hospital because it is an abnormal and possibly sickening action. This is a type of pica because the non-food item has no nutrition value and is considered very abnormal to eat. In most societies around the world eating feces is abnormal due to the health concerns behind it. Piazza (2002: 235) explains a variety of picas that mentally handicapped girls are consuming such as: car keys, rocks, sticks, rubber gloves, batteries, plastic, fabric, soap, fece...
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...tems are available to a person with pica then they will consume them unless trained not to. Pica disorder can be reduced because it is too much of a cost for a person with a pica disease to attempt to find a non-food item to eat.
In conclusion, society views the consumption of non-food items to be abnormal even if the item is dirt or a battery and the variety of items people with a pica disease can vary by that much. There are a multitude of diseases and illnesses that someone who eats non-food items on a regular basis can contract and many of them are life threatening. At the same time however it should not be as frowned upon for children to eat dirt due to the benefits it can provide them later in life with a stronger immune system. Pica diseases appear to be a combination of innate urges, psychological disorders and the social environment surrounding a person.
The excerpt being reviewed in this paper is the story of An Lingshou whose “secular surname was Xu” (Shi 307). She is an upper class woman who “was intelligent and fond of studies” and “took no pleasure in worldly affairs” (Shi 307). She is devoutly Buddhist and doesn’t want to be married, but her father Xu Chong disagrees, accusing her of being “unfilial” (Shi 307). She responds that her “mind is concentrated on the work of religion” and questions why she must “submit three times before [she is] considered a woman of propriety” (Shi 307). Her father thinks this is selfish and goes to see a “Buddhist magician monk” who tells him to “keep a vegetarian fast and after three days . . . come back” (Shi 307). Xu Chong does so and the monk “spread Xu Chong’s palm with the oil of sesame seed ground together with safflower” and has him read what’s there (Shi 307). He sees “a person who resembled his daughter” as Buddhist preaching to a large group. The monk tells him that it “is a former incarnation of” his daughter who left her house to help the world at large and that “she indeed shall raise her family to glory” and help them find Nirvana (Shi 307). Lingshou is allowed to become a nun and “cut off her hair, discarded secular ornaments, and received the rules of monastic life from” the monk who spoke to her father and another famous nun (Shi 308). Lingshou goes on to be a famously great nun who “built five or six monastic retreats” and her family goes on to be honored and promoted (Shi
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Craving non-food items, such as clay, chalk, or dirt. This may be a sign of a very treatable medical condition called pica.
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