The Importance of your Child's Tummy
The tummy is more than a pillar for good nutrition. It is a powerhouse of many vital functions to keep the body active and healthy. This is the reason why tummy discomfort can ruin one’s day!
Aside from being the site for the breakdown of food into usable components for energy and strength, the tummy is also the main base of immune defense. It is where the body’s army of soldiers gather and keep guard against infectious agents that can cause disease. You see, 80% of our antibody producing cells are found in the tummy. After all, the tummy is the main entry of foreign substances into the body considering the tons of food that pass through it in our lifetime!
The tummy is also like a super computer that houses its own network of nerves that communicates frequently with the brain! Such exchange of information between the nerves in our tummy and our brain influences digestive processes. It is no wonder therefore, that many a time our tummy feels different when we are unusually nervous or upset!
Kita niyo! The tummy is really a powerful organ that works much harder than we can imagine! It nourishes the body through digestion and absorption of nutrients; it protects the body against illnesses with its army of antibody producing cells and it is even a vital center of communication to the brain!
Hence, keeping the tummy healthy is really something we should be fussy about! When something goes wrong with the tummy, our overall health and well-being is at stake. A bad tummy can affect our productivity and enjoyment of life. And we cannot let that happen, di ba?
References:
- Podolsky DK, et al, eds. Yamada’s Textbook of Gastroenterology. 6th edition. Oxford,UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing; 2015.
- Sekirov, Inna, and Brett Finlay. “The role of the intestinal microbiota in enteric infection.” J Physiol 2009;587.17:4159–67
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