How Long is YOUR Digestive System?

1. Based on the lengths of different parts of my body, I estimated how long my digestive system was. My digestive tube was definitely long than I expected and I found it very interesting how so much tubing could fit into my body.

Digestive Organ	Color and Length (cm)
Mouth	Black / 10 cm
Esophagus	Purple / 45 cm
Stomach	Green / 19 cm
Small intestine	White / 640.08 cm
Large intestine	Maroon / 160.02 cm
Total	874.1 cm or 8.741 m

2. I am 1.6 meters tall and my digestive system is 8.741 meters--about 5.46 times my height. The digestive system can fit into the abdomen because it wraps around itself and is compacted into a relatively small clump.

3. I think it takes 4 hours for food to move through the digestive tract. In reality, it takes 50 hours-- more than I anticipated. The time it take is influenced by sex, type of food (liquid or solid), and amount of food eaten. 

4. Digesting is the breaking down of foods into simpler molecules, while absorption is the intake of the broken down nutrients by the body cells. The mouth, stomach, and small intestine digest the food and the intestines absorb the nutrients. 

5. If it's true that naturally leaner people are so because they have fast metabolism, I would like to learn how I can speed up my metabolism.

Length of my digestive tract.

SMART Goals

1. The obvious: sustain a healthy lifestyle. Previously, I've had periods of time where I'd be really into eating healthy or exercising every day, but it never lasted for more than a year. Since becoming vegetarian end of sophomore year, my diet has definitely become more restricted, but I want to cut down saturated fats and added sugars this year. I'm not really going to calorie-count or anything, but I'll watch my diet and refrain from packaged and processed foods. I think I'll also start running every weekend again like I used to to top of my health goal.

2. A goal for this semester specifically, as with all seniors, is to not slack off even though I feel a lack of motivation right now. I need to convince my self to learn for the sake of learning and not for a grade. Maybe I'll start a bullet journal to keep track of my time and inspiration. I think continuing what I've always done in the past (making lists, checking off homework) will be enough to keep me on track though. The homework for this class I feel is especially tedious, so I need to make sure I don't procrastinate on the work for this class.