The number two reason for buying more Lego

November 27, 2018 5:58 AM

Intrepid researchers discover if eating Lego is dangerous.
posted by Stark (22 comments total)

Headline of linked Guardian article:

Shit a brick: doctors swallow Lego to allay parents' fears
posted by chappell, ambrose at 6:17 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Bonus points for the post title.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:26 AM on November 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

They chose the smoothest, most pill-like piece: the head of a lego figure.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:30 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

False advertising, though. The researchers only swallowed minifig heads.
posted by emelenjr at 6:30 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Incorporating the following metrics:
Stool Hardness and Transit score
and the
Found and Retrieved Time score.
posted by ambrosen at 6:31 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pfff - if it were, I would have been dead many times over...

Generally, I didn't eat the things one would expect... (or on purpose), generally it was those little cylinders from the underside of the "1x2" bricks

(Yes, you can psychoanalyze my oral fixations all you want, you won't be the first, nor the last)
posted by jkaczor at 6:43 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

The article also does not explore the long term psychological trauma to the younger sibling who eats one LEGO (one!) belonging to their older sibling and then never hears the end of it...

(Ask me how how I know)
posted by puffyn at 6:51 AM on November 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

The article is amazing, but the research is crap.
posted by wellred at 6:59 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

How do you go about searching your poop? Not that I have plans or anything. I'm just wondering about the log-istics.
posted by pracowity at 7:12 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

An Ig Nobel award worthy endeavour!
posted by bouvin at 7:14 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Surely the results depend on whether you are a wombat or not....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:19 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yeah come back to me when you pass a sharp-cornered 2x4 brick.
posted by Nelson at 8:16 AM on November 27, 2018

Eating Lego probably hurts more if you're prone to putting your foot in your mouth.
posted by ardgedee at 9:04 AM on November 27, 2018

Here's the original article/abstract: Everything is awesome: Don't forget the Lego (Andrew Tagg Damian Roland Grace SY Leo Katie Knight Henry Goldstein Tessa Davis on behalf of Don't Forget The Bubbles)

I love the exclusion criteria (all sensible): "Previous gastrointestinal surgery, inability to ingest foreign objects and aversion to searching through faecal matter were all exclusion criteria."
posted by jb at 9:07 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah come back to me when you pass a sharp-cornered 2x4 brick.

Being able to incorporate sharp-cornered Lego bricks into their diet without any painful consequences was a crucial evolutionary advantage for wombats.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:24 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

I honestly thought it was going to be 2x2 brick, there's probably something wrong with me.
posted by Iteki at 11:28 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Deleted scene of the researchers giving the heads back to their children.
posted by Kafkaesque at 11:39 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wonder how I got through childhood never swallowing a lego.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:08 PM on November 27, 2018

The article also does not explore the long term psychological trauma to the younger sibling who eats one LEGO (one!) belonging to their older sibling and then never hears the end of it...

It’s been at least a decade since I said anything…
posted by adamsc at 3:14 PM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

I ate a penny, as a kid. Vomited it up on the way to hospital.

I also ate a paperclip, which on the x-ray was determined to be in a slightly-open configuration.

My parents had a rough week. My FART score for that object was more like 5 or 6, I think.
posted by gurple at 11:18 AM on November 29, 2018

This story isn't complete without a reference to Ian Belcher's 2002 story from the Guardian The enema within, which begins:

When photographer Anthony Cullen heard the clank of glass on porcelain, he didn't need to examine the contents of the toilet bowl between his legs. He instinctively knew he had just passed the marble he had swallowed as a five-year-old …

This is possibly the least weird anecdote from the piece.
posted by scruss at 11:58 AM on November 29, 2018

My favorite bit from this paper was from the end of the discussion (my emphasis):

There are some limitations to our study. The population studied could not be blinded to the study outcomes as we felt it was unfair on the authors' partners or colleagues to search through their waste products. We also recognise that the Stool Hardness and Transit score is not a perfect surrogate for underlying bowel pattern, but the fact that participants can SHAT themselves without specialist knowledge makes it an inexpensive tool.

posted by biogeo at 12:55 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]