Your Amazing Digestive System

Your digestive system is like a long, twisting food tunnel through your body. It starts at your mouth and ends at your anus. This amazing system breaks down food into tiny pieces your body can actually use.

The journey begins in your mouth where food travels down your esophagus (food pipe) to your stomach. Your stomach mixes food with powerful acids that help break it apart. Then food moves to the small intestine where most nutrients get absorbed into your bloodstream.

The large intestine (also called the colon) absorbs water from what's left over. Finally, waste products move through the rectum and exit your body through the anus.

Fun Fact: Your small intestine isn't actually small at all! If you stretched it out, it would be about 20 feet long—that's taller than a giraffe!

Other important digestive organs include the liver, which makes bile to help digest fats; the gallbladder, which stores bile; and the pancreas, which releases enzymes that break down food molecules.