rlMrt(~ THE POOP ON POOPYou have just eaten a wonderful dinner. Athick, juicy cheeseburger, a tall glass of milk, asalad (okay,your parents made you eat thatpart), and a hunk of watermelon for dessert.

From the moment that food touches yourtongue, your body starts breaking it down intosmaller and smaller pieces so that it can get tothe parts it needs-the proteins, carbohy-drates, and fats that fuel your engines. What-ever's left over after that has got to getdumped.

You all know the difference between "go-

r 0 0 ring number one" and "going number two." (By

the way, if both events happen at the sameThe average person eats about time is it called "going number three"?) Butthree pounds of food a day, here are some other poopy numbers to know.

1,095 pounds a year. By the time you blowout It takes about seven seconds for that bite. of cheeseburger to make it from your ESOPHA-

the candles on your 70th birthday GUS E. h "nF.. h :) d . t t h~e -~-a -gus own m 0 your s omac .

slxeep ans. - ',.. ~'.,,,:: ~£ '. '~p::-1-) opens up and the mushed-up food gets

You will ha~eN ~,>:' pushed into the S~L I~TE~TINE(i~-tes-tin).pooped a pile ~'tf /)) },-;-~~ Now, th~ ~mallmte~tme isn't particularlyabout the size of "'" . .~ ~ ~ Cd:v small. In fact it s pretty big-over 20 feet longa car! c{. ~(l ~"~'1:~'~ in a grown-up! But it's got to fit into a pretty

( <' ( 08 :"'1~~'".~ small space in your abdomen, so it loops and\ \- ~( '<."'-J . ~ rt. ~ .' coils like crazy.At the other end of the small~ ~•••••• ~\ ~ < _("e-' ,,' intestine is-you guessed it-the large intes-(t ~ '1' . ~/ ."""))/:<., tine, which is actually much shorter than the~~) '\ .' '~_~y ~ small one. (Go figure!) It's only 5 feet long, but

\)~ . : ~ )~~ it's three times wider than the small intestine.( ", ~(", .¥. '( • ',,, «-j"1't:;,' GQ"f', The inside surface of the small intestine is

. /;'5£ !~t~,,Jc \. ~'fJ"'4!." '.~, lumpy and bumpy, covered with~~<V~--::~~-+~ piT; I millions of things that look like

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( ~.;~~y )~~~'/ ~ \J\ '/ p. tiny fingers sticking up all over_"I C.:f)\~ \ (\'. (I \l /f\~ '" w . the place, called VILLI(vil/-eye).'\L\~~ It.1 rrr ~ /- C..:;t) " ? _""-' 'Jl....s: If you could somehow flatten

_,:::_' ' c-fr({ q ~'1,) a;-;---..~ ~ those lumpy surfaces with a/!." -(' ,....-_~\ ~~~ ;";.~~2' - """<;'~~'---.. steamroller and stitch them all~"-- ""~------'~~~'~B ~ ~~~-;:::~----:::..-=-~~,,-. H

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You went to tiedlooking pre~ nor-

mal, but you woke up looking like Rudolph theRed-Nosed Reindeer! How did this happen toyour poor little nose?! And wait, there's anothercrusty mountain on your forehead! You've gotpimples, my friend. To learn more, read ACNEon page 1. (Just don't pop 'em!)

How long can Daddy hold his breath? Many fathers find out when theychange their first poopy diapers.

together, they would be almost as big as abaseball diamond. (Seems awfully big forsomething with the word "small" in its name.)But that big surface area is a must. Here'swhy ...

SMALL, BUT SUPERIThe small intestine is a hard worker. It has totake the soupy slime that's just been squishedout of the stomach and sort it into carbohy-drates, proteins, and fats, continuously break-ing them down into smaller and simpler bits.The intestines move food by PERISTALSIS(per-eh-stall-sis), wave-like motions thatsqueeze the foods along. Like a snaky, slimy,spongy blotter, the intestine absorbs the nutri-

ents from each digested item as it squeezes it,sucking all the useful parts of the food into thebloodstream or the liver to be used to fuelyour body.

What's left behind? Leftovers-the reallyjunky parts of food, like tough vegetable fibersand the stuff that didn't get broken downenough to make the cut. It's kind of like beingpicked to play on a team. Everyone lines up andthe best players are chosen. Some don't get cho-sen, so it's time for them to leave the game.Andthe only way out is through the LARGEINTES-TINE, which is also called the COLON (cae-Un).

If there's any water left, it's the colon'sjob to absorb it. By the time the food has got-ten to the end of the colon, all that's left islumpy leftovers. The last 16 inches of thecolon is called the RECTUM (rek-tum). The~-poop hangs out there until enough has accu-mulated to make a trip to the bathroomworthwhile.

The last stop on the trip to the toilet isthe ANUS (f!J!.-nuss), which has two reallystrong muscles. When those muscles are re-laxed, look out below!

What's the exact recipe for that finishedpoop? Any water that wasn't absorbed, alongwith cellulose (you might know it as fiber),dead intestinal cells, and a whole lot of bacte-ria. In fact, a quarter of that pile floating in thepotty is bacteria! Yuck! No wonder it stinks.Remember: bacteria = stinkiness. By the way,the official medical word for the finished prod-uct is FECES ~-sees).

Suppose you have eaten only strawberryice cream for three days straight. Why isn'tyour poop pink? Well, your body makes a liquidcalled BILE.It's produced in your liver and itsjob is to break down fats during digestion. Andwhen its job is done, it has to get kicked out ofyour body, too. Bile has a yellowish-greenish-brownish color, and as it mixes with the otherleftovers, it stains them poop color!

-I I PARlY POOPERSPoop problems turn up when the recipe for di-gestion gets thrown out of whack for some rea-son. Maybe some nasty bacteria snuck in;maybe you ate something that you're allergicto.Whatever. The end result? The Runs.TheTrots.The Green-Apple Quick-Step. Use what-ever name you like, it all boils down to onething- DIARRHEA(die-ah-ree-ah)! In otherwords, poop that's really watery.

Diarrhea happens when the body rushes

\foods through the intestines to protect youfrom any bad stuff lurking in it. Occasionally,the stomach gets irritated and doesn't do agood job of breaking down the food in the firstplace, so your meal starts its cruise through theintestines in bad shape.That's what happenswhen you have a stomach virus. Other times,bacteria in poorly cooked or spoiled food canmake you a frequent flyer to the bathroom.

Another reason for the runs? A trip to afaraway land where different, alien bacterialive!Along with a suitcase full of tacky sou-venirs and dirty underwear, some people comehome with "Traveler's Diarrhea," also called"Montezuma's Revenge,"named after thebloodthirsty Aztec king who used to rippeople's hearts out of their chests! Folks whohave had it say the cramps you get feel justabout that bad! (Incidentally, for those of youwho are wondering, Montezuma was mur-dered by the Spanish Conquistadors, early ex-plorers who came to the New World-the veryfirst tourists, you might say.He trusted andhelped them, but they later turned onhim. So you can't really blame him for takingrevenge!)

The opposite problem can occur, too.Sometimes when you don't drink enough wa-ter and you eat junky foods like chips andcandy, the intestines work too slowly,take toolong, and too much water gets removed. Thecontents of your intestines turn into a big

Take a Ride onthe Poop Path!

The SMALL INTESTINE has three (count 'em,three) parts: The DUODENUM (due-ah-dee-

num), which grabs "liver" juice from the bile ductto neutralize the acids in food coming from thestomach; the JEJUNUM (ji-kll'r-num), where muchof the food absorption takes place; and the ILEUM(il-ee-um), where small meets large and the in-testines merge.

The LARGE INTESTINE makes a sort of up-side-down U. Its parts are: The CECUM (see-cum),which has a sphincter muscle to keep all thatstuff from flowing back into the small intestine;and the ASCENDING, TRANSVERSE, DESCENDING,and SIGMOID COLONS, which have to reabsorb sixliters of fluid a day! (That's three of those hugesoda bottles worth!)

The RECTUM is the end of the road for poop.The ANUS is the opening to the outside

world.

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brick, and trying to fit that big brick throughthat small hole is no treat. When your poop isstuck, with no way out, that's called CONSTI-PATION.Drinking a lot of water helps. So doesbrisk exercise and snacks of fruit and veggies.And if all else fails, you can always try prunes!

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAMEWhy does poop smell bad? Well, the fragranceof poop depends a lot on the kinds of foodyou eat and the particular bacteria that thrivein your insides. Each person's poop has itsown unique aromas. There are a lot of "good-guy" bacteria living in the intestines. They runa little vitamin factory, producing B vitaminsand vitamin K. But they also munch on thedregs of the leftover food, producing smellygases and two stinky chemicals, skatole andindole. (See FARTSon page 54 for more oilstinky gases.)

Babies who drink only mother's milkhave poops that don't smell bad at all. Guineapigs, rabbits, and many other small mammalshave droppings that smell sweet. In fact, rab-bits' poop is so sweet-smelling that bunniesoccasionally snack on it! And dogs adore deerdroppings. Maybe they think they're chocolatekisses? (See BEETLES,FLIES,MAGGOTS,andVULTURESfor all the poop on these poop-eaters.)

r IIV-l Who told you to read in theo~t car, eat 12 hot dogs withHille works," or for that matter stuff yourselfwith cotton candy before getting on a roller-coaster? What's that you say? You mean youdidn't know it'd make you puke? Learn moreabout why you spew-please (for the rest ofus) turn to VOMIT on page 187.

rile. What did you expeel from a word\1) whose first two letters are P andU ? Something lovely? Hel-Ioooo! And whetherit's splattered on the bathroom mirror after aquick pimple-popping or lurking beneath anoozing scab, don't let the fact that looking at itmakes you want to hurl keep you from appreci-ating just how totally cool PUS really is.

Bacteria, as you now know, can cause all sortsof problems, from smelly farts to rotting teeth.You also know that bacteria can be real trou-blemakers when they get under your skin. But