This is actually a real mental thing, probably. I recall reading stories about this years ago on FR.
I doubt anyone develops something like this in the places where actual starvation or even severe malnutrition regularly occurs.
Freegards
I saw a show ‘Intervention’? about a woman who claimed to be addicted to eating toilet paper.
Yeah they do.
Partly because they eat things that we would not normally because they are hungry.
Over time they come to crave it.
It is called "earth eating" and it usually shows up in pregnant women.