VIDEO: Nicole Bonner Is Addicted to Eating Sponges

This woman simply cannot resist eating sponges!

Nicole Bonner suffers from a condition called Pica, characterized by an appetite for non-nutritive substances.

Pica is not easy to diagnose.

The doctor will first evaluate the presence of other disorders – such as mental retardation, developmental disabilities or obsessive-compulsive disorder – as the cause of the odd eating behavior.

According to Wikipedia, Pica is characterized by an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive, such as ice, hair, paper, drywall or paint, metal, stones or soil, glass or feces and chalk.

According to DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition) criteria, for these actions to be considered pica, they must persist for more than one month at an age where eating such objects is considered developmentally inappropriate, not part of culturally sanctioned practice and sufficiently severe to warrant clinical attention.

It can lead to intoxication in children, which can result in an impairment in both physical and mental development. In addition, it can also lead to surgical emergencies due to an intestinal obstruction as well as more subtle symptoms such as nutritional deficiencies and parasitosis.

Pica has been linked to other mental and emotional disorders. Stressors such as emotional trauma, maternal deprivation, family issues, parental neglect, pregnancy, and a disorganized family structure are strongly linked to pica as a form of comfort.

Pica is most commonly seen in pregnant women, small children, and those with developmental disabilities such as autism. Children eating painted plaster containing lead may suffer brain damage from lead poisoning.

There is a similar risk from eating soil near roads that existed before tetraethyllead in petrol was phased out (in some countries) or before people stopped using contaminated oil (containing toxic PCBs or dioxin) to settle dust.

In addition to poisoning, there is also a much greater risk of gastro-intestinal obstruction or tearing in the stomach. Another risk of eating soil is the ingestion of animal feces and accompanying parasites. Pica can also be found in other animals and is commonly found in dogs.

The scant research that has been done on the causes of pica suggests that the disorder is a specific appetite caused by mineral deficiency in many cases, such as iron deficiency, which sometimes is a result of celiac disease or hookworm infection. Often the substance eaten by someone with pica contains the mineral in which that individual is deficient.

More recently, cases of pica have been tied to the obsessive–compulsive spectrum, and there is a move to consider OCD in the cause of pica. However, pica is currently recognized as a mental disorder by the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).

Sensory, physiological, cultural and psychosocial perspectives have also been used by some to explain the causation of pica. It has been proposed that mental-health conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia, can sometimes cause pica.

However, pica can also be a cultural practice not associated with a deficiency or disorder. Ingestion of kaolin (white clay) among African-American women in the US state of Georgia shows the practice there to be a DSM-IV “culture-bound syndrome” and “not selectively associated with other psychopathology”.