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Human digestive system

The human digestive system is a complex series of organs and glands that processes food. In order to use the food we eat as energy , our body has to break the food down into smaller molecules that it can process; it also has to excrete (or get rid of) waste .

Most of the digestive organs (like the stomach and intestines ) are tube-like and contain the food as it makes its way through the body. The digestive system is essentially a long, twisting tube that runs from the mouth to the anus, plus a few other organs (like the liver and pancreas ) that produce or store digestive chemicals. Without the digestive system, our bodies would not be able to get nutrients from the food we eat or get rid of the waste products that food makes and we would soon become ill!

Top 10 facts

• The small intestine is about 7 metres long, and about 2.5 centimetres in diameter. The surface area is around 250 square metres, or about the size of a tennis court!
• Some animals have stomachs with multiple compartments. (They're often mistakenly said to have multiple stomachs.) Cows, giraffes, deer and cattle have four-chambered stomachs, which help them digest their plant-based food.
• Some animals – including seahorses, lungfishes and platypuses – have no stomach . Their food goes from the oesophagus straight to the intestines.
• We make 1 to 3 pints of saliva a day.
• It takes your mouth, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, gallbladder, pancreas and liver just to digest a glass of milk.
• An adult’s stomach can hold approximately 1.5 litres of material.
• Food stays in your stomach for 3 to 4 hours.
• Cells along the inner wall of the stomach secrete roughly 2 litres of hydrochloric acid (the powerful chemical commonly found in some cleaning supplies, including toilet-bowl cleaners!) each day, which helps kill bacteria and aids in digestion. To protect itself from the corrosive acid, the stomach lining has a thick coating of mucus . But this mucus can't buffer the digestive juices indefinitely, so the stomach produces a new coat of mucus every two weeks.
• When your tummy rumbles , it’s the normal movements in the stomach and small intestines as food, fluid and gases pass through your gastrointestinal tract. When the tract is empty, however, the noises are louder because there's nothing in there to muffle the sound.
• Within the colon , a typical person harbours more than 400 distinct species of bacteria.

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• When you eat something, the food doesn't simply fall through your oesophagus and into your stomach. The muscles in your oesophagus constrict and relax in a wavelike manner (called peristalsis ). This motion pushes the food down through the small canal and into the stomach. Because of peristalsis, even if you were to eat while hanging upside down, the food would still be able to get to your stomach!
• The detergents used to wash clothes often contain several different classes of enzymes , which are also found in the human digestive system. The digestive system uses proteases to break down proteins like meat, amylases break down carbohydrates like bread and lipases break down fats like cheese. For example, your saliva contains both amylases and lipases, and your stomach and small intestine use proteases.
• Most people think that the stomach is the centre of digestion, and it does play a large role in digestion by churning food, mixing it with gastric juices, physically breaking up food bits and turning them into a thick paste called chyme. However, the stomach is actually involved in very little chemical digestion, the process that reduces food to the size of molecules, which is necessary for nutrients to be taken up into the bloodstream. Instead, the small intestine , which makes up about two-thirds of the length of the digestive tract, is where most of the digestion and absorption of nutrients takes place . After further breaking down the chyme with powerful enzymes, the small intestine absorbs the nutrients and passes them into the bloodstream.

Look through the gallery and see if you can spot the following:

• The human digestive system, labelled
• Internal organs
• Fibre-rich breakfast
• Fruit and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet
• Washing your hands after visiting the toilet helps keep you healthy
• The mouth and teeth

Our body needs food to provide it with energy, vitamins, and minerals. However, in order to use food, we must first break it down into substances that the various organs and cells in our body can use. This is the job of our digestive system. The digestive system acts in stages to digest our food. Each stage is important and prepares the food for the next stage. The entire length of our digestive system is around 20 to 30 feet!

Chewing is the very first stage of the digestive system. When you chew your food it breaks up big pieces into little pieces that are easier to digest and swallow. Also, your saliva is more than just water. It has special enzymes in it that start to break down starchy food (potatoes, bread) while you chew.

Swallowing is the next step in the process. You might think it happens all by itself, but food doesn't just fall down our throats into our stomach. Firstly, our tongue helps to push the food into the back of our throat. Then there are special throat muscles that force the food down into a long tube that leads to our stomach, called the oesophagus. The food doesn't just fall down the pipe, muscles push the food along until it gets to our stomach. At the same time all this is going on, a flap blocks off our windpipe making sure food doesn't go the wrong way. (We call this "going down the wrong pipe" and it can make us choke.) This flap is called the epiglottis and, fortunately for us, it works automatically.

The next stage is the stomach . Food stays in the stomach for about four hours. While the food sits there, more enzymes go to work on it, breaking down things like proteins that our bodies can use. The stomach kills a lot of bad bacteria as well, so we don't get sick. However, if any of these bad bacteria get through, that’s when you might experience a tummy ache or sick bug.

The next step in the process is the small intestine . The first part of the small intestine works with juices from the liver and pancreas to continue to break down our food. The second part is where the food gets absorbed from the intestine and into our body through the blood.

The last stage is the large intestine . Any food that the body doesn't need or can't use is sent to the large intestine and later leaves the body as waste.

The liver and pancreas do a lot to help the digestive system along. Both work with the small intestine. The liver provides a substance called bile (and this is stored in the gall bladder). Bile helps break up fat into smaller parts. The pancreas provides more enzymes to help digest all sorts of food. The liver also processes all the digested food from your blood before it gets sent to hundreds of places in your body to be used.

Words to know:

absorb - to soak up a liquid or take in nutrients or chemicals gradually bacteria - a single-celled microorganism. Various species are responsible for decay and many plant and animal diseases chemicals - produced by or involved in the processes of chemistry corrosive - able to destroy something progressively by chemical action digestive - relating to or aiding in the digestion of food energy - power from the physical or chemical resources, especially to provide light and heat or to work machines or even the body enzyme  - a complex chemical produced by living cells excrete - to isolate and discharge (get rid of) waste matter generated during metabolism glands -  a cell or group of cells that secretes a specific substance mucus - the clear slimy lubricating substance consisting mostly of mucins and water that coats and protects mucous membranes nutrient  - a substance that provides nourishment organ  - a complete and independent part of a plant or animal that has a specific function process - a series of natural occurrences that produce change or development saliva - the clear liquid secreted into the mouth by the salivary glands, consisting of water, mucin, protein, and enzymes. It moistens food and starts the breakdown of starches. secrete - to produce and discharge a substance

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Just for fun...

• Learn how our bodies digest and process food by making your own (very messy!) digestive system
• Download free  digestion quizzes, puzzles and memory games from Curiscope
• Build a model digestive system
• Play a digestive system game from Siemens
• Can you name the organs of the digestive system ?
• Understand more about digestive systems by looking into a cow's stomach
• Play Centre of the Cell's Poo Racer : collect bacteria points and fuel up with food and drink pit stops and help your poo vehicle travel through the gut!

Best books about the digestive system for kids

Find out more

• A digestive system quiz to see how much you’ve learnt
• Print out and label the digestive system
• A digestive system word search
• Digestion is the breakdown of larger molecules into smaller molecules using enzymes; find out more about digestion in a step-by-step guide to the process for older children
• Travel through the digestive system step-by-step with a National Geographic Kids guide
• Find out how breakfast affects your day and what makes us burp and break wind in BBC Bitesize videos
• See inside the human body and find out more about the digestive system
• When you feel sick your body gets rid of food; find out more in What is puke?

See for yourself

• See an animation of the digestive process  

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The Digestive System

This resource provides a lesson about digestion in humans, linked to curriculum objectives. It is structured around a series of captivating, educational films. The films highlight the structure and function of the key organs of the digestive system, focusing on what happens at each stage on food's incredible journey. The detailed lesson plan includes key teaching points, activities, misconceptions and questions to check understanding. This resource has been provided by Tigtag  primary science resources.

You may also be interested in our online, self-paced course  Teaching primary science: body processes.  

Food's Incredible Journey

The Intestines  

Odd One Out

True of False

Did you know?

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Human digestive system

You eat a meal. and then a bit later… you do a poo but what happens in between.

Follow Nat Geo Kids as we take a journey down through the human digestive system to find out where our grub goes!

The human digestive system

It takes around  24 hours  for your dinner to wind its way through the  nine-metre-long digestive tract . On its trip, it’s mixed with acids and digestive juices, and squeezed and squelched until all the nutrients that the body needs are absorbed. Then, the smelly leftovers, along with billions of dead bacteria, are ready to exit the body. Plop !

Let’s follow your food to learn about the brilliant bits of our bodies that make up the human digestive system…

It all starts here! Up to 28 strong teeth * chomp your food, breaking it into smaller bits. Meanwhile, the  tongue  keeps moving the food around, shifting it to the type of teeth that will be best at munching it. It also squeezes the chewed grub into swallowable lumps, pushing them back towards the throat. Gulp !

Fast fact: When you swallow, a little flap of cartilage called the epiglottis closes off the windpipe so food doesn’t go down there by mistake.

Here, you’ll also find the salivary glands that produce most of the slimy liquid in your mouth. This saliva moistens food, making it easier to swallow. It’s also full of chemicals called  enzymes  that help to break down food. Amazingly, just the smell of good grub can make your mouth start to water!

Fast fact:  Your salivary glands can produce up to six cups of saliva per day. Squelch!

*MOST GROWN-UPS HAVE 32 TEETH. YOU USUALLY GROW FOUR ‘WISDOM’ TEETH BETWEEN THE AGES OF 17 AND 24.

Also known as the gullet, this 25cm-long tube contracts to shift chewed food down to your stomach . The squeezing motion of the muscles is called  peristalsis  and it occurs throughout the digestive system. A slimy mucus is also oozed from the oesophagus to help the food on its way. Easy does it!

Fast fact: Thanks to peristalsis, food would get to your stomach even if you were standing on your head!

Next stop on our journey through the human digestive system — the stomach! This stretchy muscular bag is about the size of a tennis ball when it’s empty, but expands to the size of a football to store a massive meal. As soon as food plops inside, the stomach lining releases digestive juices and acid that break down the food even more, killing harmful bacteria. Muscles slosh and squelch the food together with the juices until it becomes a sloppy soup called  chyme  that’s ready to be squirted into the small intestine…

Fast fact: The acid in your stomach is so strong it could dissolve an iron nail!* To stop your stomach digesting itself, it’s lined with a protective mucus, and your stomach cells are replaced every few days.

* Please do not eat a nail. Ever.

Despite the name, the small intestine is really not that small — it’s a whopping 6.5 metres long ! It’s in this 3cm-wide tube that all the nutrients in your mushed-up food pass through the small-intestine lining and into the blood. Once all the goodness is gone, the sloppy mixture passes to the next part of the intestines…

Fast fact:  The lining of the small intestine is covered with teeny finger-like bumps called “villi”. They give the lining a large surface area to help with absorbing nutrients.

More than twice as wide as the small intestine, but only 1.5 metres long , the large intestine’s job is to soak up water, salts and minerals from the indigestible leftovers. Finally, the remaining semi-solid waste, called faeces, travels to the  lower colon  and rectum for storage. When you go to the loo, a ring of muscle called the anus relaxes to allow the poo out! Super and stinky!

Fast fact: Your small and large intestines together are known as your bowels!

This busy brown organ plays an important role in the human digestive system —  it’s your largest internal organ and has about  500 different jobs ! It’s like a chemical processing factory — blood carries nutrients there from the small intestine, then the liver decides what to do with them. It also gets rid of toxins (substances that can be harmful to the body), recycles old blood cells, makes bile and other digestive juices, and produces, stores and releases glucose (to give you energy).

Fast fact: About one third of the body’s blood flows through the liver every minute!

Gallbladder

The role of this green, pear-shaped organ is to store bile (a liquid that aids digestion) and make it thicker and stronger before adding it to the small intestine.

Did you know that we have FREE downloadable Human Digestive System Primary Resource ? Great for teachers, homeschoolers and parents alike!

Your pancreas  sits just behind the stomach and makes chemicals called enzymes which help digest nutrients in your food. It also makes insulin, a hormone which helps control your blood sugar levels.

Doctors used to think that this thin little organ was useless — a leftover body part from early humans. But today it’s thought that the appendix stores “good bacteria” that can help your digestive system work again after you’ve been poorly.

What did you think of our journey through the human digestive system? Leave a comment below and let us know…

Pancreas image: dk / superhuman encyclopedia. all other images: getty images uk. with thanks to dr dewi byrne., leave a comment.

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WELL DONE, YOUR COMMENT HAS BEEN ADDED!

this is awsome

Cool but super gross :)

It is gross but cool and funny.

The digestive system is so magnificent. And I love how you described alot about it. And Evan added in some fun fact. If you were in high school or elementary I would have moved you up about 8 grades. Well done

I loved this

awesome facts and nice content

[…] a virus pandemic, the best defense out there is to take care of your gut, brain, and immunity! Your digestive system is the man on the job - it is compromised of ten organs, contains 20+ specialized cells, and is one […]

[…] National Geographic Kids […]

Clear, concise and easily absorbed notes. Thank you.

Really Interesting to read!

that's gonna help me ace my test

Gross but awsome

I think so too

THIS IS SCARY!!! By the way, i'm a kid who had a really weird dream about seeing the Egyptians taking peoples guts out! like ewwwwwwww but the strange thing is I saw everyone getting their guts taken out!!!! So if you read this then please help me! I want to get rid of this dream!! Its been 3 days now and I still have the exact dream about peoples guts taken out like WHAT THE HELL! this dream is really scaring me!

THIS IS AMAZING

WOW what amazing interesting information

some of this

Wow,I got so many things about digestive system .thanks

The Journey is amazing.! If we eat something, the process of the digestion starts at that time...?

Your comment : its so educating and now l know better what my inside is like concerning digestive system. And the importance of each and every apart inside. l can give the knowledge to the young ones for a health lesson and how to care for your body and what to take in as food.

Really STRANGE FACTS

That is so cool.

Awesome and wow!!!!!

Very interesting! We learned a lot of new things.

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

Wow that's the one

Very interesting and learnt good facts that I will now remember.

the liver does soooo many jobs imagine what would happen without it. '0'

That is the weirdest thing

The Liver was the most interesting. Some of the pictures looked a bit weird but I got used to it.

WOW! I never knew that. I thought that it was just your stomach digestive. I learned a lot from this.

Why is this super heathy?

Can you teach about the nervous system?

can you teach about what is inside your bones?

CUSTOMIZE YOUR AVATAR

More like general science.

Coral reef facts

Follow your food!

Broccoli that tastes like brownies!

All about Engineering and Technology

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The Digestive System Worksheet

Subject: Primary science

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

30 November 2014

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doaametwally

Thanks this was great for working with 10 year olds.

epdemetriou

Thank you, this is great for my EAL students.

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Digestive System Model (Year 4)

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This hands-on activity gets children modelling the process of digestion. It gives children the opportunity to explore the function of the different parts of the digestive system in an engaging and entertaining way. The resource includes questions for children to complete after the activity.

Answers to each of the questions are provided.

• Key Stage: Key Stage 2
• Subject: Science
• Topic: Animals, Including Humans
• Topic Group: Living Things
• Year(s): Year 4
• Media Type: PDF
• Resource Type: Activities & Games
• Last Updated: 25/10/2023
• Resource Code: S2WAE150

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