Yes, it’s like magic!! And you are the magician! Actually, it’s your AMAZING body that does all the work but yeah… like magic!!! What am I talking about? I’m talking about your incredible ability to turn what you just ate, whether it was breakfast lunch or dinner, into a living, breathing human being.
Now listen, it would be cool enough to just think about how your AMAZING body can turn chicken fingers or pancakes into eyeballs, right!?! But you are an even better magician that that!!! Maybe you’ve seen magic tricks where the magician makes things disappear. It might be something small like a dollar bill or a bird, or it might be something huge like the Statue of Liberty. Something that is visible becomes invisible. Well, you can do that AND the exact opposite. You can make the visible become invisible AND you can make the INvisible become VISIBLE!!! Let me tell you what I’m talking about.
Let’s first look at how you make something visible invisible. When you eat anything, for example an apple, the process of digestion breaks down the apple and turns it into useful products that actually become you. But when your body breaks down the food, one of the by-products is carbon which you eliminate from your body as carbon dioxide in air you exhale. Something you can’t see!!! Carbon is the second most common element in the body. Proteins, carbohydrates, and fats all contain carbon, so no matter what you eat, to some extent, you turn something visible (food) into something invisible (carbon dioxide in the breath you exhale). In fact, the average human exhales about 2.3 pounds of carbon dioxide on the average day. The more active you are, the more you produce. Presto… change-o!! AMAZING!!
What’s more, you’re such a great magician, you can also change the INvisible into the visible. When you eat, your body breaks the food down into complex molecules like glucose, which it can use for energy. However, food alone is not enough to create the energy you need. You also need oxygen to react with the glucose to create energy. And you are awesome at doing that!!! You breathe in just over 2,000 gallons of air every day—enough to almost fill up a normal-sized swimming pool.
You take the INvisible (oxygen in the air you breathe) and combine it in your body with other elements to produce energy which you see anytime you move, whether it’s jumping on a trampoline, riding your bike, or playing your favorite sport. Presto change-o!! In fact, you breathe in over 2,000 gallons of air every day… enough to fill an average sized swimming pool!! AMAZING!!!
Your body can do all of this because it uses your nerve system to communicate with itself. Your brain talks to your stomach and digestive system as well as your lungs and respiratory system.
That’s how they know what to do. The better your brain and nerve system can talk to your parts, the better your body functions. Your nerve system is protected by bone (i.e., your skull and your spine) because this communication is so important, not just for your digestive and respiratory systems but for EVERY system of your body,
Sometimes, the bones of your spine can misalign because of things you do every day. Those misalignments can distort the communication between your brain and your body parts, then things might not work as well as they should or could. Your family chiropractor will check your spine for these misalignments (called vertebral subluxations) and adjust you whenever necessary to restore the communication. Then you can be the AMAZING magician you were meant to be. Presto change-o!!
—By Judy Nutz Campanale, DC, ACP
Provided and published by ICPA. For more information, visit discoverkidshealth.com