Category: General health
Apologize to Your Children Because We Absolutely Should Be Talking About Bowel Movements
Sorry parents, your children were right to be obsessed with bowel movements— both making them and discussing them.
Now I’m not saying the conversation about the mechanical and chemical process of breaking food down so it can be absorbed through the intestinal lining (i.e. digestion) should be dinner table discourse. As the popular phrase so eloquently says, there’s a time and place for everything. I am, however, saying it should be entertained during other moments of the day.
Your digestion system is directly linked to constipation, allergies, fatigue, skin problems, mood swings, bad breath, and food intolerance, among other things. And yet, the daily routine we learn and adopt from an extremely young age primarily centers on surface-level maintenance (i.e. things we do to maintain the outside of our body) like brushing our teeth and washing our face. Where is the daily routine and conversation that is centered on maintaining the inside of our bodies?
If we’re being honest, bowel movement conversations make children giggle because they know by saying one word, poop, or passing one puff of air, gas, that they will trigger an instantaneous audible gasp by one or both of their parents.