Twelve-year-old Shreelaxmi Kanojiya had developed the habit of eating hair when she was a two-year-old, but when she continued, it led to a massive hairball forming in her stomach. However, doctors at a Kalyan-based hospital successfully removed the 15x18 cm mass through an open surgery, last Friday.

Her parents said that she had got into the habit of eating hair at a very young age, but they did not know that she was still doing it. Shreelaxmi’s father Vinod Kanojiya said, “She developed the habit at the age of two. She would even pick hair off the floor and eat it. Once we scolded her, so she stopped doing it in front of us.”