How does poop form in the body

Diarrhea in children — especially infants — can be particularly dangerous because they can get dehydrated quickly and become very sick. If you only have three or fewer bowel movements per week, constipation could point to issues with your diet.

If your poop never seems to sink in the toilet bowl, that can be a reflection of your diet and certain health conditions. Floating poop can be caused by:. Your poop may not smell like flowers, but the odor of your poop should be familiar. Foul-smelling poop can be caused by:. Do you have questions about your poop and your health?

Curious Kids is a series for children. The food that you eat is broken into small pieces by chewing and mashing it in your mouth. You make a little food ball with the help of your tongue.

Your body has a cool trick to get the food ball down to your tummy and not into your lungs. Just behind the tongue is a little gate called the epiglottis. It closes to stop food going down the wrong way and accidentally getting into your breathing pipe. When you swallow, the food ball is pushed back down to the start of a food tunnel called the oesophagus that leads to your stomach.

Starting in the oesophagus that food tunnel in your neck an amazing action called peristalsis takes place. Peristalsis happens with the help of walls inside your gut. It gives your body the strength to send the food ball from the food tunnel to the stomach and all the way down to your bum.

The stomach is a J-shaped moving box full of stomach juices. The liver filters out harmful substances or wastes, turning some of the waste into more bile.

The liver even helps figure out how many nutrients will go to the rest of the body, and how many will stay behind in storage. For example, the liver stores certain vitamins and a type of sugar your body uses for energy. At 3 or 4 inches around about 7 to 10 centimeters , the large intestine is fatter than the small intestine and it's almost the last stop on the digestive tract. Like the small intestine, it is packed into the body, and would measure 5 feet about 1. The large intestine has a tiny tube with a closed end coming off it called the appendix say: uh-PEN-dix.

It's part of the digestive tract, but it doesn't seem to do anything, though it can cause big problems because it sometimes gets infected and needs to be removed. Like we mentioned, after most of the nutrients are removed from the food mixture there is waste left over — stuff your body can't use.

This stuff needs to be passed out of the body. Can you guess where it ends up? Well, here's a hint: It goes out with a flush. Before it goes, it passes through the part of the large intestine called the colon say: CO-lun , which is where the body gets its last chance to absorb the water and some minerals into the blood.

As the water leaves the waste product, what's left gets harder and harder as it keeps moving along, until it becomes a solid. Yep, it's poop also called stool or a bowel movement. The large intestine pushes the poop into the rectum say: REK-tum , the very last stop on the digestive tract.

The solid waste stays here until you are ready to go to the bathroom. When you go to the bathroom, you are getting rid of this solid waste by pushing it through the anus say: AY-nus. There's the flush we were talking about! The evolution of disgust is an interesting topic. Diverse cultures across the planet respond in a similar way to disgusting stimuli, such as poop; for instance, we all recoil, pull the familiar, disgusted expression, and shudder.

In short, evolution has hardwired our entirely negative reaction to poop to protect us from disease. Disgust forms part of our so-called behavioral immune system ; like our physical immune system, a disgusted reaction to poop protects us from pathogens.

Fecal bacteria, in general, are more resilient than bacteria we find elsewhere. This means that they are more likely to tolerate living in the harsh environment outside the body, giving them ample opportunity to infect passing humans. As discussed above, one of the reasons we consider the smell of feces to be so abhorrent is a protective measure. However, objectively, poop certainly does have an overwhelmingly pungent stench.

However, certain chemicals are commonly involved in the aroma, including:. In this article, we will leave you with one final poop-based tale. Although it is not directly about human health, it is a fascinating example of how feces can tell a story, albeit, a sad one.

The authors noted a distinct drop in stress levels during this time. It seems that it was due to a steep decline in the amount of ocean-faring traffic and, consequently, a substantial reduction in underwater noise.

As we mentioned, this story is irrelevant to human health, but it serves as a good reminder that even the most seemingly unpleasant of bodily functions can reveal unexpected details about the world around us and within us. Poop changes, depending on what a person eats, and can sometimes look stringy. Both serious and mild conditions that affect the bowels can cause…. A look at different types of poop, which has a range of consistencies and odors. Learn more about the different types and what they mean here.

How much, and how often should…. A range of situations and conditions can cause yellow stool. In most cases, yellow stool is due to what a person eats.