I am unable to lose my weight due to the habit of eating raw rice. How to quit it?

Question

Hi doctor,

I am asking for my daughter. She is a 13-year-old female and just turned 13 last month. She is very addicted to eating raw rice. She is having this problem since very small and have tried several methods and searched online that she has PICA disorder. I have done many things like substituting with snacks and excursive to lose weight but none seems to work. Right now, she is trying hard to lose weight but she feels like due to the consumption of raw rice all her effort is not working. Although she has lowered the amounts of taking raw rice, it is still, and feel like due to weight gain, she is not growing taller. She is 152 centimeters. Is it normal? She already knows about this matter and has tried several things including punishing her to stop. How to control her self-eating? Please give me the advice to lose weight for her height problem and how I can stop her eating raw rice? Please tell me how to make my daughter stop eating raw rice, lose weight and grow taller.

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

Thank you for consulting.

Since she already knows that she has Pica and has weight problems because of eating raw rice, this disorder is usually due to iron deficiency anemia. Of course, raw rice has more calories, which can lead to weight gain, and also sometimes it can contain the bacteria Bacillus cereus, which can lead to food poisoning too. Pica can be caused sometimes by psychological problems, too, which might need behavior and aversion therapy. As for the height, it totally depends on your ethnicity and also genetics, as well as nutritional deficiency, but not on the weight of the person. I would suggest you get a complete blood count test and follow up with reports.

Hope I was able to help you, and I will be happy to help you further.

Thank you.