Know About the Workings of the Digestive System

So, you want to know (and test yourself) about the digestive system: what it's for and how it works? Well, you've come to the right place!

Food enters your digestive system when you eat something. Your teeth chew it, and you swallow it down your oesophagus (also spelt esophagus).

That mashed-up food reaches your stomach where it stays for 2-3 hours, being churned around until it's in liquid form. Food has to be a liquid for your body to be able to get the nutrients out of it - that's what digestion is.

Next, it moves out of the stomach into the small intestine, where the final digestion takes place as nutrients pass across the wall of the intestine and into the blood. Now they can be taken all over the body to feed working muscles, thinking brain cells, growing legs and so on.

What's left of your food now enters the large intestine where any water left in it is extracted before you get rid of it down the toilet.

Here's a diagram illustrating what we've just been talking about, so you can see where everything happens - take time to look at it (and don't worry too much about the names of things we haven't mentioned - you've got to have things to look forward to in your learning!):

Got all that? Let's have a go at a few questions, to see how you're getting on...