Are You A Toenail Biter?

If you search for toenail biting online, you might have a hard time finding relevant results. It usually defaults to nail biting or fingernail biting. But people – often children but adults too – may be toenail biters and it is a “thing.”

We’ve talked about why people bite their nails and what the most common triggers (reasons) for nail biting might be. But what about toenail biting? Why would someone do this?

Research

Nail biting research is relatively scarce and a recent phenomenon certainly when compared to other habits that people often partake in and try to quit. And it always focuses on nail biting, not nail picking in my experience. While you can find research papers that discuss fingernail biting, research papers on toenail biting specifically seem to be virtually non-existent. But people are searching for information on it.

Research on children biting their fingernails has established that a significant percentage of children who are referred for clinical help with mental healthcare issues have a nail biting issue. That’s not to say that all nail biters have mental health issues but that it is often found to be the case. Nail biting is often classified as an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) although there are plenty of people who disagree with that assessment.

I’ve written on this website about my long, lifetime experiences with nail picking and biting and how I discovered that for me, it was more just a habit that I did for no particular reason. I quit doing it almost overnight after 40+ years of nail biting (!) once I really started to monitor my nail picking (mostly) and nail biting (to a lesser extent) activity. You can read more about that by clicking here.

I’ve never once thought about biting or picking my toenails ever. It’s not something I ever considered. So I decided to do some research on it and didn’t find much. It’s like the phenomenon doesn’t exist even though it does.

Babies And Their Feet

Children – especially babies – are likely to put both their hands and their feet in their mouth. For newborns the distance between their hands and feet isn’t that far! It’s easy for them to try to put their foot in their mouth in place of a pacifier. But they don’t necessarily try to bite their toenails especially as they may not even have teeth yet. It’s more a coping mechanism as they figure stuff out.

As a father of two daughters who spent a significant amount of time raising them with my wife, I recall seeing the two them sticking their hands and feet in their mouth almost like magnets while changing them. It seemed so automatic. I’d gently pull their hand or foot out of their mouth, and they’d shove it back again especially while teething. But it passed pretty quickly and they stopped.

Adult Nail Biting

Research on toenail biting is sparse. It’s difficult to even find information online about it. You know something is hard to find when you try different searches for toenail biting or toenail biters and end up every single time presented with results regarding fingernail biting by default.

Perhaps it’s just not something that professionals have researched yet especially since even fingernail biting research is somewhat recent. In the recent past, fingernail biting – it was suggested by Sigmund Freud – was based on a person’s oral fixation and nail biting was how they got their fix so to speak. That theory has long since been debunked however.

Research now focuses on nail biting as being a reaction to a trigger like stress, anxiety, frustration or nervousness among others. Other research has suggested that nail biting is done out of perfectionism and it’s because nail biters get frustrated when they can’t accomplish a task on time or to their satisfaction. They react by biting their nails to cope.

Other research shows that sometimes it’s just something to do to keep our hands busy. That was certainly the case for me although it took me awhile to figure that out. Mainly because I’d never really truly thought about why I was picking and biting my nails. While I did often pick and bite them when stressed or worried, more often than not it was just something to do and had become an automatic habit.

But why would someone bite their toenails?

Toenail Biting Research

I had to search online forums like Reddit and Quora to find answers. I couldn’t find nail biting research that even referred to toenail biting research specifically. What I found related to toenail biting can be summarized as follows.

People who bite their toenails:

• Realize it’s gross but do it anyways and tend to be embarrassed by it.
• Mentioned that they sometimes do it out of stress or nervousness, similar to fingernail biting triggers.
• Do it in private because it’s something they don’t want others to know about although they may bite or pick their fingernails in public.
• Mentioned that they often bite their toenails simply so they don’t have to cut them.
• Sometimes pick their toenails rather than bite them.
• Report that when they quit doing it, it may have been only because they were no longer flexible or limber enough to put their foot in their mouth!
• Realize it isn’t common and turned to an online forum to see if there are others who bite their toenails too.

Toenail Bacteria

It’s well-known that fingernails harbor bacteria and biting fingernails can be very hazardous to our health and in particular out teeth, mouth and stomach.

What about toenails? Are they as dirty as fingernails?

Research suggests that infections of both finger and toenails are often caused by fungi and bacteria. Paronychia is the name of the disease that occurs on the skin around both toe and fingernails. When bacteria gets in our mouth, it can lead to infections and other ailments.

Each foot contains up to 125,000 sweat glands too. So your feet at any given time could contain sweat, dirt, dead skin and debris along with the aforementioned fungus and bacteria. All of which end up in your mouth when you bite your toenails.

And it is also established that nail biting can cause tooth and mouth problems so it stands to reason that toenail biting would be as bad if not worse since toenails tend to be larger and are two to three times thicker than fingernails.

How To Quit

Again, there is virtually nothing that I was able to find that specifically addresses the topic of toenail biting and quitting the habit. One would think that it might be easier than quitting fingernail biting since it’s harder to do. Especially if you aren’t flexible enough to do it.

Some of the methods used to quit fingernail biting might be employed for toenail biting, too. And while fingernail biting is generally considered to be gross, we still do it in public. Toenail biting in public would take things to a whole new level.

In that regard, if toenail biting is an ongoing, compulsive habit for you, the best thing to do might be to speak with your doctor and ask for advice. While bitter nail polish and things of that nature may help, getting medical advice might be a better first option to help you quit and also figure out why you’re doing it in the first place.