Unusual eating disorders
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
United States
December 18, 2012 1:01pm CST
There are some unusual eating disorders that you might not think are disorders. We all know about anorexia and bulimia and pica, but we don't hear much about disorders that cause people to only eat one thing, or to be afraid to swallow solid food, and other sources if eating disorders.
I know of a couple strange disorders, but I don't know the clinical name for them. I saw some documentaries in which a woman could only eat French fries. She gagged on any other type of food she put in her mouth. There was another woman that only would eat fries with melted cheese on them. There was also a woman that only ate ice cream bars. These people could not eat anything other than what they ate. They had to get mental health care with therapists that use graded exposure therapy in order to reclaim their lives so they could eat normally.
There was another woman who got choked once, and since then she was afraid to swallow solid food. She chewed food and then spit it out into a glass. It liked gross. She did this so long that she lost 150 pounds in 8 months. She was in danger if dying because she only drank 8 to 20 ounces of liquid in a day.
This woman also had to have therapy to get well, but she had to have a moving X-ray that showed she could swallow without difficulty. It was really difficult for her to get over her fear of swallowing.
Have you ever heard of strange eating disorders? I would like to hear about any if your experiences with disorders like this, or anyone you know that had a disorder like this.
I am interested in this and I will be going some research about these disorders and I would like to know any experiences you may have about them.
2 people like this
11 responses
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
18 Dec 12
I don't really have any firsthand experience with any of the more off the wall eating disorders. However, I have noticed one thing about my best friend that I find to be quite odd. What she does is that she is constantly eating ice. I mean she is chewing on ice from the time that she gets up in the morning until the time that she goes to bed at night. In this situation, I think that there is something in ice which her body is deficient of. However, I'm not positive about it.
I do, however, think that many of the strange eating habits (disorders if you will) that people have are related to sensory issues that they might have.
2 people like this
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
18 Dec 12
Yes you are right on both counts. I didn't know this until another mylotter said her doc told her that she chews ice all the time because she is deficient on iron. Barb may also be right that the body is low on water. There is a reason why a small segment of the population might have an unusual food preference and not eat anything else. They are called tasters. Tasters are people who have more taste buds than other people and they are more sensitive. It's a genetic predisposition, but it does not force a person to eat only one food. It's more like the person has to take longer to get used to a food's taste and texture. With the right therapy, a person can add foods to the diet and tolerate them well.
@STOUTjodee (3573)
• United States
18 Dec 12
I've heard of people also eating dirt. I guess they were lacking something from foods that only they could get from eating dirt. There was one woman that craved it so bad, she went to her neighbors and he had a beautiful flower garden. So she started eating the dirt, only she didn't know that he made his own fertilizer and she ended up dying.
1 person likes this
@mentalward (14690)
• United States
18 Dec 12
I don't have any eating disorders but I did watch a TV show awhile ago that showd several disorders. I can't remember the name of the show but they had one patient who went to the ER because of severe abdominal pain and they found that her colon was literally clogged by toilet paper. She would eat at least one roll every day, small pieces at a time. There was another where a gal ate nail polish! She would take the brush, full of the nail polish, and wipe it across her tongue. 
Another who ate chalk. From what I gathered, these people would eat fairly normally otherwise and simply added these bizarre things to their diets.
I've heard of pregnant women craving some pretty bizarre things but that typically only lasted a few months then disappeared, always disappearing after the birth of the baby. I wasn't one of them, I only craved pickles and Maryland steamed crabs, weird together but still pretty normal.
I don't think I've ever known anyone with strange or bizarre eating habits. I was accused of being anorexic before since I weighed less than 100 pounds most of my life but I simply could not gain weight, no matter how much I ate. (That all changed since I began treatment for panic disorder syndrome.)
Another who ate chalk. From what I gathered, these people would eat fairly normally otherwise and simply added these bizarre things to their diets.
I've heard of pregnant women craving some pretty bizarre things but that typically only lasted a few months then disappeared, always disappearing after the birth of the baby. I wasn't one of them, I only craved pickles and Maryland steamed crabs, weird together but still pretty normal.
I don't think I've ever known anyone with strange or bizarre eating habits. I was accused of being anorexic before since I weighed less than 100 pounds most of my life but I simply could not gain weight, no matter how much I ate. (That all changed since I began treatment for panic disorder syndrome.)@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
18 Dec 12
Hi Mentalward! Yes, I have seen one where a woman ate toilet paper. It wasn't the same one cause the girl on the show I watched didn't go to the ER with her problem but went to the doctor because the therapist wanted her to tell her doctor about her problem. She was told that it could eventually cause a severe bowel obstruction.
I saw one where a girl was drinking gasoline. Those were on the My Strange Addiction series. I never saw the one about nail polish. Eating nail polish sounds pretty scary. I am so glad my daughter or myself never had any problem like that. The strangest thing my daughter does is to eat the apple core with the apple. 
@winterose (39887)
• Canada
21 Dec 12
yes pica you have an article on it on yahoo voices, I told you about it, people eat anything like rubber and dirt.
1 person likes this
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
21 Dec 12
I wrote an arrival today on graded exposure therapy which gradually desensitized the person from the feared object ir situation, as you know.
I think I will write about pica tomorrow. It will keep my views up around 2000 or better each day.
There are so many behavioral disorders that I would like to write about.
@Adoniah (7513)
• United States
18 Dec 12
Disorders such as you describe are not physically oriented, but rather psychological. I know of a physical disorder that causes people to eat chalk...there is some sort of metabolic disorder that causes them to do this. It is treatable.
There is also a disorder that causes people to swallow metal objects. They usually die from perforated intestines.
2 people like this
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
18 Dec 12
Yes I have heard if these. Eating chalk, crayons, metal objects is considered pica. It all seems pretty dangerous to me.
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (167071)
• Boise, Idaho
18 Dec 12
Maybe it is the pica but there was a show on tv for awhile showing OCD problems and one was where a person ate chalk and another ate toilet paper. Ugh! How the psyche can effect people.
@celticeagle (167071)
• Boise, Idaho
19 Dec 12
Yes, and it could become dangerous. Don't you think. Clog up the works.
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (167071)
• Boise, Idaho
22 Dec 12
That is a shame. I think that alot of kids don't listen to adults and get themselves into all kinds of trouble because of it. Happy holidays.
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
19 Dec 12
Yes, I believe it us pica, but it is also an addiction. To not indulge in eating toilet paper, the woman on TV got very anxious at the thought if not eating it. She tried to justify her eating it as that it was not harming her. So she was psychologically dependent on on it and in denial.
1 person likes this
@wilsongoddard (7291)
• United States
19 Dec 12
There are all sorts of gradations and variations on disordered eating. I've known people who had (or still have) some form of disordered eating, anorexia and/or bulimia--and the people around them suffered due to the disorder(s).
While people often think that eating disorders are simply about distorted body image, that is not always the case. While having a distorted view of one's body can certainly be a large component, there are often other issues driving the disorder. One of the big things is control; a person (usually a girl or woman) will feel that (s)he does not have control over her or his life, and food is one of the few ways in which (s)he can exert control; thus, a pattern of disordered eating is born.
1 person likes this
@wilsongoddard (7291)
• United States
19 Dec 12
With one of the women I knew, it was a poisonous combination of body image and a need to exert control in some small way. She had been abused in so many ways by her family and her mother's boyfriend, that food was the only domain in which she could actually reign.
As far as I know, she is still alive. I'm not certain where she is now, but I've never heard anything about her passing. Since we went to the same college, that sort of news would likely eventually make it back around.
1 person likes this
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
21 Dec 12
I hope she has a better life now. It's really sad to sort of go through this with people you know. There is a feeling if helplessness when you see someone you know deteriorating right before your eyes.
@BarBaraPrz (47343)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
18 Dec 12
I once knew a guy who would eat his styrofoam cups after having the coffee or whatever. I guess that falls under pica. And then there was the boy in my grade two class who ate his crayons...
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
18 Dec 12
Yes those examples are pica. Lots of people have some sort if pica. I knew of someone who ate paper. It just makes me cringe to think about it.
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (47343)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
18 Dec 12
This was over 50 years. Crayons did not smell good then, and they probably really weren't edible either.
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
1 Jan 13
I just have a bad case of "just can't eat one"
@vandana7 (100300)
• India
20 Dec 12
Yeah...I heard of one. Recently..(abt 6 months ago), one of my maid's former employer came to my place. During our conversation she revealed that her mother in law had this disorder in which she needed to be constantly given some food. I tend to eat while watching TV. Ever since I heard this ...I have been nervous whether I have something similar. lol
1 person likes this
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
21 Dec 12
I used to have that habit. I would mindlessly snack in front of the TV or the laptop. Now I only eat at the table and only snack on fruits and veggies at the table. I'm losing weight by changing my habits.
@stk40m (1119)
• Koeln, Germany
18 Dec 12
I think what you're talking about is similar to phobias. It's only a psychological thing. People somehow at some point become scared of something - food in this case - because of a ''simple'' reason. For example they think that the food could hurt them and so they don't eat it. That thought intensifies and develops into a phobia which may happen quite fast (within minutes) and that really prevents them from swallowing it. This has also happened to me, not with food though. As a youngster I used to do handstands with rollover from a diving board. But at some point a thought crossed my mind: I could miss the diving board with my hands and hit the board with my head so I would be injured heavily. I never got that thought out of my mind and I was never able to do the handstand with rollover again. It had developped into a phobia.
I think that psychological help by others is necessary in such cases. Sometimes people don't manage to do get over it on their own.
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
19 Dec 12
In some cases, phobias do have some component to the eating disorders. In other cases it is a genetic problem where the person has many more taste buds than what us considered average. The taste buds react differently to the foods touching them which gives the person an unpleasant taste. Though, there is a physical component, the person also has a mental reaction in which he ir she doesn't want to try anything new because of the belief it will taste horrible. They start gagging as soon as they put something in their mouths.
These people can be helped, but it takes lot if repeated exposure to foods. It might take several tries before a person can tolerate a food enough to swallow it. This condition affects a small portion if the population.
@BigMoney25 (1286)
• Philippines
19 Dec 12
I know about an eating disorder where in a person will eat what he/she wants then try to squeeze into his/her tonsils just to vomit out all the food he/she has eaten. They do this just for them to taste the food and after that they release it with that technique, I think it's something that can hurt the esophagus overtime.
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
21 Dec 12
It's a bad disorder. I think it has to do with feeling out if control and a poor self image. I think it is also related to having a distorted view of what the body looks like.
@bikramkumarp (15)
•
19 Dec 12
Eating disorder is very common in this present time. This is due to lack of knowledge about our diet. Sometime we eat more than we need.This leads to unwanted deposit of energy in subcutaneous tissues in the form of fats. This fat cannot be dissolved as it isn't mobile one.
