Pica- A Case Report on Eating Disorder of Rural Adolescent Girl

This report is based on the interesting clinical case study of a teenage based in India with long standing history of ingesting nonnutritive materials. She was initially non-selective, but later began more exclusively consuming mud obtained from a wall in the back yard of her house on regular basis. She suffered from a eating disorder known as pica. The DSM-IV defines pica as a form of feeding and eating disorder of infancy or early childhood ,characterized by “the persistent eating of non nutritive substance for a period of at least one month : inappropriate to the developmental level , not part of a culturally sanctioned practice and sufficiently severe enough to warrant independent attention.” Currently there is no clearly established etiology for pica. This case particularly psychopathology of recurrent, unwanted ,thoughts of the mud wall and eating the mud ,feeling of distress and anxiousness that were relieved after consumption of mud and significant effect on her daily life from her uncontrollable need to return home and eat mud from the same wall of her back yard. These symptoms suggests obsessive thought distress consumption relief that is consistent with obsessive compulsive disorder. This case study reflects pica as a part of obsessive compulsive developing spectrum disorder. This case does not necessarily need generalization but is a subjected to mental health of adolescent girl.