Eating dirt can even become an addiction, an impulsive act hidden from others. “With geophagy, the language of substance abuse is really common,” says Sera Young, Assistant Professor of Global Health and Nutrition in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine.

It’s easy to dismiss geophagy as a disgusting habit of children, a wacky pregnancy craving, or an exotic behaviour from far-away lands, but none of these approaches really do it justice. Moreover, such characterisations risk alienating people who find it difficult to explain their ‘unnatural’ desires.

To fully grasp this phenomenon, and understand whether its effects are positive, negative or a subtle mix of the two, researchers need to undertake hypothesis-driven tests that take both biomedical and cultural factors into account.

“I’m not saying ‘everyone should be eating three spoonfuls of earth a day,’” says Young. “But we certainly don’t know enough yet to write this behaviour off entirely.”

This summary was adapted from an article published by the BBC. Read the full article here.