Nail biting habit follows students to high school

Whenever freshman Yena Jeong reads a good book, she finds her hands “inching towards her face,” reverting to a bad habit she has never been able to fully conquer: nail-biting. Although the resulting pain in her nails may only last a few days, according to Jeong, the bad habit is still annoying. 

Jeong has been biting her nails since second grade. She is unsure of how nail biting started, but it eventually became compulsive. Jeong does not consciously indulge in her habit. 

“Sometimes I forget about [biting my nails] for a few months, but when I'm reading a book, I'll just start biting them again,” Jeong said.

However, Jeong does not bite her nails frequently enough to make her habit more than an irritation. 

“My nail biting isn't daily, but sometimes it's annoying,” Jeong said. “Over the break, since I read a lot of books, I bit my nails a lot, and it hurt the next day. It only hurts for a few days, and then it's fine.”

Sophomore Vincent Huang also began biting his nails at an early age. 

“I’ve pretty much been biting my nails on and off for as long as I can remember,” Huang said. 

Huang usually bites his nails because of stress.

“Usually I stop during the summer, but it just comes back during the school year,” Huang said. “I guess stress from school is a big factor for why I do it.”

Thinking is also a trigger for Huang.

“If I'm ever in deep thought, I just find myself biting my nails,” Huang said. “I don’t bite my nails too often. It’s compulsive but not really a problem.”

Most people do not consider nail biting a serious condition. Nail biting is medically classified as pathological grooming, a category that also includes hair pulling and skin picking. It may be unsanitary, but in a mild form, nail biting is not life-threatening. 

Jeong once tried to cure her nail biting habit with nail polish. She hoped that painting her nails would deter her from her bad habit.

“If I paint my nails, I don't bite them,” Jeong said. “That worked for a while.”

Most students do not suffer enough from this bad habit to try curing it. In fact, freshman Stephen Law believes there are even benefits to nail biting.

“I don't ever need to cut my nails,” Law said.