5 Why Do I Poo

WHY DO I POO? WHY DO I?

Do You Need the Bathroom? Birds do it, bears do it, and mice that live under the stairs do it. Everybody poos! But have you ever wondered why we poo? Where does poo come from? Where does it go? GROSS BUT GREAT! You eat and drink every day. Your body takes out what it needs from the food to stay healthy. Then it gets rid of the parts of food it does not need. This is poo and pee!

Food Goes In All people need to eat. Food gives us nutrients. These are the substances people need to stay alive and healthy. When you eat, different body parts break down food and take out nutrients for your body to use. Learn more about the parts of your body that break down food on pages 12 and 13. You need many different nutrients each day. Here is what you get from a spaghetti dinner. Getting all the right nutrients from food is called having a balanced diet. MEAT helps build muscles. TOMATOES give you vitamins and minerals. SPAGHETTI helps give you energy. MILK helps build bones.

Breaking Down Food The first stop on food's journey through your body is the mouth. Each of the parts of your mouth do a job to break down food. Front teeth are sharp for biting. Lips keep food inside the mouth. The throat leads down to your stomach. The tongue moves food around in your mouth. Back teeth are flatter for chewing. When you eat, the first thing you do is chew your food into smaller pieces. It must be a mushy ball before you can swallow it. Saliva is the liquid in your mouth. It helps break down your food, too! After food is swallowed, it moves through your body and different body parts take nutrients out.

Poo Comes Out Fiber is the tough parts of food that are hard for your body to break down. Eating foods that have a lot of fiber helps poo come out more easily. HIGH FIBER FOOD After your body takes all the useful nutrients out of your food, there are usually parts left over. The parts of food your body cannot use are called waste. Waste comes out of you as poo! Poo is made up mostly of water and fiber. It also contains a slime called mucus. Mucus helps poo slide through your body. Poo also contains tiny living things called bacteria. WATER MUCUS FIBER Good bacteria help break down food. Dead bacteria are what makes your poo smelly!

JOURNEY OF POO HOW DOES PIZZA BECOME POO? STEP 1: Chew up the pizza in your mouth. Then swallow it. STEP 2: The chewed pizza travels down a long tube to your stomach. Special muscles push and squeeze the food down, like toothpaste through a tube! STEP 3: The food sits in your stomach for about 4 hours! A special substance breaks the food down into nutrients your body can use. STEP 4: The useful nutrients are taken in through the intestines and sent to the rest of the body. STEP 5: The unused parts of the food are squashed into poo, or waste. STEP 6: Poo leaves your body when you are on the toilet