Is this detramental to a child/person's health?!

Well, jeez, Shannon. That's a disgusting question, and usually questions like that are a joke, but I actually think you're serious, so here goes: Boogies are collections of dirt, bacteria, and pollutants from the air that enters the nostrils (external nares). The nostrils are lined with fine hairs to facilitate capturing this schmutz, and I believe the skin layer of the interior of the nostrils is mucous membrane, but in any event, the epidermal lining of the nostril interiors is moist with mucus secretions, so the yuk that is trapped by the hairs and by the sticky mucus itself dissolves or is trapped in the external nares and does not go further into the respiratory system.

To some extent, this little schmutz trap inside the nose acts like your eyelashes, keeping out dirt, but it also is a coarse bacteria filter as well. Usually, the collections of nose junk we call boogers are just blown out or cleaned out by the nose's owner, but occasionally--and particularly among the very young still exploring the orifices and potentialities of various body parts--they are harvested and consumed as a snack. Basically, what your nephew is doing is snacking on the stuff trapped in one of the body's garbage disposal systems, so he is consuming dirt and bacteria in a nice chewy medium (yuk). Of course, once he sticks it into his mouth, the enzymes in his saliva and ultimately the hydrochloric acid of his stomach probably destroy the bugs that, had they been inhaled directly into his respiratory system, could have wreaked some havoc. So it's doubtful that he is actually hurting himself.

But you might want to have a discussion with him about the slime that clings to the edge of empty garbage cans and the yuk that sticks to the garbage disposal after the garbage has gone through it, and then give him an anatomy lesson, if he's old enough to understand.

My sister, who I'm not sure ever indulged in boogie snacks, had a thing about other people in her grade school classes who did indulge, and from her I think I learned that boogies are reputed to be a little sweet. So alternatively, you might want to get the kid some Jujubes and offer him one the minute his finger heads headward.

I really answered this question because of your name. Are you related to the woman with the same last name who lives near Pelham Bay in the Bronx, NY and is in her early 70s?

In any event, good luck with your nephew. Nose content harvesting and snacking is a disgusting habit not uncommon among young kids exploring themselves, and it is more disgusting than dangerous, but if you can get him to stop, it wouldn't hurt.

Kids have been doing it for centuries. It's gross, but not going to make the child sick. This is just dried mucus that lives in the nasal passages. Some of it naturally slides down the back of the throat anyway. But if your nephew persists with this habit, he will be ostracized and made fun of by other children. That would be detrimental to his emotional health.