Human Digestive Systems for Children

Your digestive system plays an important part in your growth and development. It processes the food you eat, taking the nourishment and vitamins needed throughout your body so you can grow up strong and healthy. It begins with your mouth and ends with a bowel movement to remove all that is left over.

Mouth

• When you start eating, saliva forms in your mouth to help break down the food before you swallow it. Sometimes saliva can start forming when you think about or smell a food that you like. As you thoroughly chew your food, your tongue helps to push the pieces to the back of your mouth toward your throat and your esophagus, and then it heads for your stomach.

Esophagus

• Your windpipe, or trachea, is also located at the back of your throat and this is organ where the air you breathe in is carried to your lungs. A flap in your esophagus, called an epiglottis, closes your trachea when you are swallowing any food or drink to keep it from going into your windpipe by accident, which would make you cough or choke. The muscles in your esophagus help to move the food down into your stomach.

Stomach

• Your stomach stores the ingested and processed food until it has been broken down with the help of gastric juices from the walls of your stomach. The food is then mixed in your stomach into smaller pieces. The muscles of your stomach also help to break down the food until it is more of a liquid mixture, preparing it to move farther into your digestive system.

Small Intestine

• The next stop for your food is the small intestine, a 22-foot long tube that is below your stomach. This is where your body absorbs the nutrients from the food with the help of your pancreas, gallbladder and liver. Food provides you with protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. The pancreas helps to digest protein and fats. The liver and gallbladder produce bile, a juice that helps to digest the food and move it into your bloodstream. The liver also acts as a filter to remove wastes and harmful substances from the food, and stores some of the nutrients until they are needed. Your food can take up to four hours to move through your small intestine.

Large Intestine

• Your large intestine is about 5 feet long and fatter than the small intestine. Here is where the remainder of the food that can be used by your body is processed for removal. The waste moves through the colon, a part of your large intestine, where water and any leftover minerals are absorbed into your blood. As the waste continues to move through your large intestine, it becomes more solid. This solid, called stool (or poop), is pushed into your rectum where you push it out when you have a bowel movement.