Digestive System for Kids
Digestive system is one of the interesting systems in the body to learn about. Let us look at the whole journey of the food we chew in the mouth, till it gets digested, with the help of a diagram of the digestive system for kids.
Remember the movie Osmosis Jones, where the hero is Osmosis Jones, who is actually a WBC (white blood cell) and part of the immune system? When a deadly bacteria enters Frank’s digestive system, the hero fights this villainous bacteria! The movie showed interesting scenes of the digestive system. Now let us understand the basic functioning of the digestive system for kids, from the food entering the body through mouth till getting excreted in the form of feces, which is poop!
Journey of the Food Digestion is an important body process where the food we eat, gets converted into substances which can be absorbed by the body. Wondering, how does the digestive system work
? Many different organs together form the digestive system, these organs work together to digest the food. You can refer to the below digestive system diagram for kids, to understand better.
#1 Chewing of the Food
When you are chewing the food, the saliva in the mouth, helps to breaks down the chemicals in the food to a small extent. This process makes the food mushy and easier to swallow, the movement of the tongue while chewing helps to move the food around and the teeth help to chew the food. When the food is enough mushy, the tongue pushes small amounts of the mashed-up food (called as bolus) inside the throat. There are also certain enzymes in the body which help in digestion, some of which are even present in saliva.
#2 Traveling Through the Esophagus Pipe
The tongue pushes the bolus in the opening of the esophagus, which is a 25 centimeter long and stretchy pipe, which you can see in the digestive tract diagram. However, at the back of the throat there are two openings, one is the windpipe and the other is the opening of esophagus. A small flap called epiglottis, opens the opening of the esophagus to pass the food, and makes sure that the food doesn’t go down the windpipe. But, many times if you eat too fast, you can swallow air with the food and get burps! This happens because swallowed air along with the food or liquid, which enters the stomach is pushed out through the esophagus. The food in the esophagus moves in a wavy path slowly, which takes around 2-3 seconds.
#3 In the Stomach
The food, after passing the esophagus pipe, enters the stomach, which is like a tilted ‘J’ shaped organ, as shown in the diagram of the digestive system for kids. The stomach forms an important part of the digestive system; imagine a big house which keeps mixing and mashing all the mushed up food, and helps to maintain digestive health. The stomach performs 3 major functions; it stores the food, it breaks down the mashed-up food into a liquid mixture and slowly passes this mixture in the small intestine. The strong muscles in the walls of the stomach and the acidic gastric juices, help to break down the food, these juices also kill the bacteria present in the food.
#4 Passing the Small Intestine
The digestive systems small intestine is not small in length, but just called small intestine because it is small in width. It is actually a long tube, and an adult’s small intestine is around 22 feet long! The digestive system provides the building blocks or important nutrients to the muscular system. The small intestine along with 3 more organs, which are the pancreas, liver and gallbladder further break down the food to absorb all the essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, carbs, proteins and fats in the food. The blood comes to the liver, and the liver filters-out the harmful and waste substances. Learn more on, small intestine function.
#5 Passing the Large Intestine
The digestive system large intestine anatomy is fatter compared to the small intestine, and if spread out would measure 5 feet. The large intestine function in digestion is to separate the waste food into solids and liquids, of which the solid waste comes out as feces. Read on to know more on facts about the digestive system.
Well, this was all about the organs of the digestive system for kids and their functions. Here, is a blank digestive system diagram, for you to label and practice. So, just remember the order of the digestive system, the name of the organs, and their functions and you will be able to remember everything about the digestive system easily!
