The digestive system helps your body process the food you eat. We eat food to keep us healthy and strong. The body is able to break down the food we eat, use the nutrients and then send the rest out as waste product.
When you are thinking about delicious food like fries and chicken, your digestive system starts working. It even starts when you smell this food! The saliva forms in your mouth and helps make the food you eat go all mushy. Next you tongue helps when you are chewing to push the food down the oesophagus. Then it reaches your stomach.
The stomach is a stretchy sack which is shaped like a “J”. It stores the food you have eaten, breaks it down into a liquid mixture and slowly empties this mixture into the small intestine. The small intestine breaks down the food even more. It also helps your body take out the good nutrients which go to the liver. The leftover waste goes to the large intestine.
When the food mixture reaches the large intestine most, of the good stuff has been used by the body. Next the mixture goes through the colon and into the rectum. The waste stays here until you are busting to go to the toilet. Eventually this waste exits the body as it is pushed through the anus - poop in the toilet!
The digestive system is very important because it enables us to eat, process food, use the nutrients and get rid of the waste products from our body.
