What do you call an eating disorder that is characterized by a craving to eat non-food items such as rust, chalk and dirt?

Baloo55th

There is an actual disorder where dirt and other non-food items are eaten. It's called pica, from the Latin for magpie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_%28disorder%29 Jun 04 04, 9:55 AM

yeaux

The correct term for dirt eating is geophagia and for aberrant eating of non-traditional foods like starch, pagophagia. It is often a symptom of iron deficiency. Jun 11 04, 8:33 AM

Senior Moments

Persistent eating of non-nutritive substances for a month or more is called Pica. The term pica is derived from the Latin for Magpie, a bird with unusual eating habits. Pica can occur in conjunction with a number of conditions, but it’s often difficult to figure out why some people develop this behavior while others do not. People who have pica often have otherwise normal appetites. Some other non-nutritive substances that are frequently eaten by people with this condition are clay (geophagia), starch (amylophagia), ice (pagophagia) and hair (trichophagia). This voracious consumption of unusual substances can be associated with pregnancy, iron deficiency anemia and obsessive compulsive disorders. If the pica is due to a specific condition, the treatment of the condition (or delivery, in the case of pregnancy) should make the craving disappear. http://fhradio.org/fm/archives/2003/2651(FM).htm Jun 11 04, 8:53 AM