The Man Who Ate an Entire Airplane, Piece by Piece

Wait, wait, wait, wait a second.

People feeling compelled to eat strange things.

Hmm.

I swear I've hated some kind of TV show with this premise.

Oh yeah, I remember seeing something like this too.

You probably have.

Between 2010 and 2015, the Learning Channel, or TLC for short, aired a show called My Strange Addiction.

I won't speak to the quality of the show, but one of the more common quote unquote addictions faced in the show seemed to be people eating out of the ordinary or straight up inedible substances.

Some examples include a woman who ate mattresses, a man who ate plastic bags, a man who ate glass, and a woman who was literally eating her house, like literally ate the drywall and everything.

We have to note something.

My strange addiction may be fake.

TLC has a habit of… exaggerating the truth, to be kind.

Some have accused the show of portraying lolita fashion enthusiasts as being addicted to looking like living dolls, despite it being a common fashion movement in places like Japan.

But for the purpose of exploring this topic, we're going to assume that the crew of TLC did not fake people eating unusual things.

but things may not be exactly how the show presented them.

Go on, elaborate! I'd be happy to! Doctor of Pharmacy Shelby Laheny wrote a blog post on the topic of these strange dietary habits after watching an episode of My Strange Addiction, in which she questioned the addiction part when it came to those who were eating seemingly nonsensical things.

Or in her words, a person with no medical background may think nothing of these behaviours, and that these people must be just weird and gross.

But with the knowledge I gained throughout schooling, I began to wonder if maybe something else was going on.

What if these individuals had a disorder called Pica, and were just undiagnosed? And she's not the only one who had this thought.

Addiction Treatment Center, Harbor Village, released a blog post where they described the show as, "...a freak show masquerading as educational programming," and that while audience may leave with a feeling of disgust at the strange diets featured in the show, what they don't know is these people are sick.

They suffer from a mental disorder known as Pica.

Man, there's nothing funny about it.

There it is.

There's

that name again.

Wait, wait, wait, wait a second.

People feeling compelled to eat strange things.

Hmm.

I swear I've hated some kind of TV show with this premise.

Oh yeah, I remember seeing something like this too.

You probably have.

Between 2010 and 2015, the Learning Channel, or TLC for short, aired a show called My Strange Addiction.

I won't speak to the quality of the show, but one of the more common quote unquote addictions faced in the show seemed to be people eating out of the ordinary or straight up inedible substances.

Some examples include a woman who ate mattresses, a man who ate plastic bags, a man who ate glass, and a woman who was literally eating her house, like literally ate the drywall and everything.

We have to note something.

My strange addiction may be fake.

TLC has a habit of… exaggerating the truth, to be kind.

Some have accused the show of portraying lolita fashion enthusiasts as being addicted to looking like living dolls, despite it being a common fashion movement in places like Japan.

But for the purpose of exploring this topic, we're going to assume that the crew of TLC did not fake people eating unusual things.

but things may not be exactly how the show presented them.

Go on, elaborate! I'd be happy to! Doctor of Pharmacy Shelby Laheny wrote a blog post on the topic of these strange dietary habits after watching an episode of My Strange Addiction, in which she questioned the addiction part when it came to those who were eating seemingly nonsensical things.

Or in her words, a person with no medical background may think nothing of these behaviours, and that these people must be just weird and gross.

But with the knowledge I gained throughout schooling, I began to wonder if maybe something else was going on.

What if these individuals had a disorder called Pica, and were just undiagnosed? And she's not the only one who had this thought.

Addiction Treatment Center, Harbor Village, released a blog post where they described the show as, "...a freak show masquerading as educational programming," and that while audience may leave with a feeling of disgust at the strange diets featured in the show, what they don't know is these people are sick.

They suffer from a mental disorder known as Pica.

Man, there's nothing funny about it.

There it is.

There's

that name again.