Well, kids do strange things. I think picking one's nose helps clean the airways, making it easier to breathe, and kids always seem to have running noses. Possibly in a child eyes, there are only a couple of things you can do with boogers. I've seen kids use their sleeves to wipe their noses (equally as gross), just let their noses run, or eat the boogers. As children grow up they become more self-conscious about what they do. At some point they discover the tissue.

Well, to make my answer more general, let's clarify that not only little kids eats their boogers (tecnically known as "mucus"), big kids, grown-ups and old people do it too. The act of eating your mucus is known as "mucophagy" and is done by kids basically because they do not think about stuff likes adults do, they just do it and they do not think if it is gross or not, healthy or not, socially accepted or not. However is at that age that "mucophagy" starts. Some people will stop when they realize what they are doing, some people do not, and will keep doing it (in hiding) until they die. You can call it a "habit" and according to what I read....very hard to break. Well, for your information (gross or not) the average person eats about a quart of mucus (snot, phlegm or slime, as you like) per day. As you know the nose is connected to the same canal the mouth is connected and then to the esofagus, well the nose secretes mucus all day and a good amount of it goes down your throat. When mucus gets hard stays in the nose and well, those are the ones "mucuphagus" pick and eat. For your tranquility, mucus is basically water and salt, with some chemicals produced by the body. They are supposed to serve as a trap to incoming germs, pollen and dust. Believe it or not, there are people who actually believes that "mucophagy" is healthy because expose your body to germs and make you produce antibodies that will fight for you in your inmune system. Interesting, ain't it?

They are gummy , " a very interesting thing"! "Why do I feel this up my nose and what the Hell is it? After the salty and gummy taste,(sometime sweet), the child will eventually find that such behavior will not be accepted in the "normal" world and they must abide by it. I have never eaten any boogers or snot when I was growing up as a child. Even at those ages in life, I look at nose picking and booger eating as repulsive. How in the hell can someone eat something that oozes out of their bodies. Gross!!!

A friend of mine once speculated about that. She pointed out that since boogers include small amounts of bacteria and viruses that the cilia in the nose have filtered out of the air, eating them may serve as a sort of natural innoculation process, allowing children (big or little) to build up their immunities to common germs. She concluded that eating boogers was therefore a survival trait. Personally, I always figured kids eat it because they usually don't have anyplace else handy to put it.

For the same reason adults do, and they do. Empericcal evedince of this can be observed while commuting along the Long Island Expressway. Just check the cars around you during the next traffic jam. Frank

I imagine that some kids think they taste good.

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Same reason little boys play with their privates, because it's there. :>)

Because they're maladapted and their parents never punished them when they caught them doing that. I never did even when I was a toddler. I thought it was gross from the moment of my earliest sentient thought.

My daughter is 3 years old and I have never seen or known her to eat her boogers.

Because they don't know any better!

For the same reason they eat dirt or anything else they can stick in their mouths. It is part of a developmental stage. Hopefully, they will grow out of it.

Not only is it a habit that's hard to break... but think about it logically. Mucus = filters out bacteria. Bacteria is found in yogurt. Therefore, nose = free yogurt factory. And since people say yogurt is good for you because of the active bacteria cultures... following the logical process, boogers MUST be healthy for you.

Coz grown ups keep telling them to eat their greens?

It could be because the boogers are irritating, and despite how hard you may try to blow, they are plastered to the walls of your nostril, and the only way to get rid of the irritation is by "gold mining". Boogers taste good too, kind of like fried chicken.

Eating boogrs is an sympathetic nervous response to a drop in stem cells of the hippocampus of the brain.Your body produces stem cells in the nasal cavity, and generally the 1pint of mucus you swallow every night is enough to re supply the brain with its required amount, but in small children with developing brains the demand can get very high,so the brain signals for more mucus to be consumed,therefor the consumption of boogrs takes place. The term boogr is a genetic term as such: Brain Offering Organic Genetic Reconstruction. When the stem cells trapped in the mucus of the boogrs is eaten they pass threw the stomach protected by the mucus and upon reaching the intestine the mucus is broke down by the bacteria and the stem cells are tagged and carried to the brain for use.Kids who eat their boogrs are typically allot smarter than kids who are driven not to, the difference being 10-20 i.q. points.Video games and computers kill stem cells in the hippocampus and lower your I.Q., and although considered a nervous condition in adults boogrs are eaten for the same reasons as children.

I think that it's pretty obvious that TaiChiChuan3 eats boogers

You've got to do something with them once you pull them out of your nose.

Okay, I realize that for most people, the thought of eating a booger is completely and utterly disgusting. I do, however, agree with the first commenter's monologue on kids eat 'em. I also have heard that a child has some sort of deficiency in something which makes the salty and slimey tempting, consciously or not. I did... don't judge... because I saw another girl... whom I later (19 years later) found out has mild mental retardation... doing it... and so I was initially disgusted because I realized what she was doing... but eventually became curious. That cat got skinned the hard way.