Students love (or hate) this grossest gross fact and I love watching the look on their faces as I tell it! Tape worms are long, flat white worms that live in the stomach of some animals and make them sick. People can also get tapeworms if they eat raw meat that has tapeworm eggs in it.

If you have a tapeworm (and nobody in this room has a tape worm, because nobody in this room is at the hospital), it lives in your stomach and eats the food you eat. So, sometimes people feel hungry even after they eat. Sometimes they feel a bit sick as the tapeworm moves up towards the food that is coming down into the stomach.

In Canada, you go to the doctor if you have a tapeworm, however in some countries where doctors are really far away, or very expensive, people try to get the tapeworm out on their own. One young man fasted all day, eating nothing so that the tapeworm was hungry. Then, at the end of the day, he took a piece of bread and held it on his tongue. The tapeworm started crawling towards the bread. When it was part way out of his mouth, he grabbed it and pulled it out. This is not recommended, as the tapeworm could break and if it had eggs inside it, then the eggs would all be in your stomach.

In Canada, you go to the doctor and they give you medicine and you poo out the tapeworms.