Moment Girl, 8, Eats Broken Glass From Bowl While Doing Homework
This is the bizarre moment an eight-year-old girl eats broken glass from a bowl while doing her homework as a result of a medical condition known as hyalophagia.
Sufferers of hyalophagia have an unexplained urge to eat glass and the latest incident of the girl munching on broken glass was filmed by her father, Muntasir Sayed Muhammad, who claims his other children also have urges to eat strange things, including his son who eats red bricks.
Muntasir, who lives with his family in the town of Armant in the Egyptian governorate of Luxor, told the newspaper Youm7 that his eight-year-old daughter Habiba has been eating glass since she was a young child.
He added that his son Abdullah, 13, likes to eat red bricks and he has taken disciplinary action against him until he stops the unusual practice.
Muntasir added that he has two other daughters who like to eat raw meat and glass, but has managed to break their habit several years ago.
He said he has taken his children to see specialists on numerous occasions to find a solution for the problem, but with no luck.
As a result, the concerned father has appealed to doctors in Egypt to contact him to help treat his children’s unusual eating disorders.
Pica is a psychological disorder characterised by an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive, including hair (trichophagia), faeces (coprophagia), ice (pagophagia), dirt (geophagia), and glass (hyalophagia).
Experts say that although there are examples of people eating glass for magical acts or circus sideshows, it can be extremely dangerous and result in either the tongue or the throat being cut or even the stomach and intestines being perforated, with potentially deadly consequences.
They said that hyalophagia comes from the Greek word “hyalos” meaning “glass” and the Greek word “phago” meaning “to eat.” it is actually a development of pica which is the consumption of non-nutritional substances which appears in this case to affect not just the girl, but also her siblings.
