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A pica epidemic: a price for sedentarism among Australian ex-hunter-gatherers.

Beginning in 1974, pica (eating clay) became a conspicuous behavior at isolated Aboriginal coastal towns in North Australia. The sudden onset provided opportunity for investigation into causal factors, to disperse some of the old mystery of pica (Lat: magpie). Of wide distribution among the world’s poorer or more tribally oriented people, pica occurs most commonly in children. Here it is conspicuous among adult women past child-rearing age. A previous epidemic of clay eating occurred among town women in the 1950s. When nomadic Aboriginals settle in townships, diet and eating customs change abruptly. The food quest no longer occupies its central place and its mores and values are robbed of their cogency. Monotonous imported foods replace the original varied diet. Pivotal social roles for the hunting, foraging, and distribution of food are lost. Aboriginals have yet to adopt home-gardening. It is considered un-Aboriginal and without ancestral precedent.