Pica Essay

788 Words2 Pages

Individuals who eat ice cubes when they feel hot or hungry or have swallowed paper when they were younger, may not understand that they could be showing symptoms of a common disease, pica. Pica, named after the bird, Eurasian Magpie, is an act of eating non-food items such as glass, soap, paper, and ice. Pica is typically seen in developing babies, but anything past that general age is considered a mental disorder. The lack of knowledge about pica has caused people to feel uncomfortable about their disorder, pica has also caused people to avoid treatment which causes them to suffer from many outcomes. The rise of pica awareness from 2000-2019 affected the rehabilitation received by young adults in America. Pica is a growing disorder with little …show more content…

JISPCD states, “Despite the wide variety of theories, not one of them explains all forms of pica” (Kluwer 2). This statement illuminates the fact that because pica is such a rarely talked about disease, people won't feel comfortable getting treated until awareness is raised, pica is very essential to diagnose and to be able to treat the cases properly, but to diagnose pica people need to feel comfortable talking through their symptoms. An extensive amount of people are unaware they have pica because they are unaware of any sort of symptoms. One common symptom is ingesting ice, even though ice may seem like a food item, it is not considered one, people may not realize this is a symptom that also causes people to not get their illness treated. People are unaware of their symptoms because of the lack of awareness of pica. Several people feel the need to hide their pica, mainly trying to disguise the disorder from their loved ones. During the movie Swallow, the main character, Hunter, faces the same problems. Hunter Says “Are you ashamed of me because I ate that, I did it all for you” (Swallow …show more content…

If more people would understand the initial effects of pica, then they would feel more comfortable getting the illness treated or diagnosed. Pica is a trait that can be passed down to children by their pregnant mothers, In the poem Pica Jennifer Perrine writes, “All desires begin with me; my unborn, indiscriminate taste, my unwieldy appetite for handfuls of ash and soil” (9-11). This evidence reflects how when a mother is carrying their child and they develop, they can pass down their illness because their child will develop cravings for certain objects their mothers ate. If more people knew the underlying symptoms and effects of pica, they would know the grave impact it could have on others. If the knowledge about pica was stronger, people would be able to understand that pica has many harsh outcomes, but as a result of little to no knowledge about it, people continue to take constant risks by having pica. Throughout this overall text, we see the many challenges that people with this disorder face, and because of the lack of awareness, people feel the need to hide their

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