Are you ready to learn some things about children’s health, and the human body in general, that you might not have known before?  Here we go!

Ah-choo

Sneezes can travel out of your nose at up to 100 miles per house and spread germs up to 2-3 meters!  Also, germs can live on hard surfaces for up to 24 hours – no wonder if one person in the house gets sick, the rest of the family gets sick too!

Germs

Do you know why we sneeze?  Germs get caught in the hair inside our noses which makes our nose tickles.  This sends a message to the brain and the brain sends a message back to your nose, mouth, lungs, and chest telling them to blow the tickle away – leading to a sneeze.  Also – it’s impossible to sneeze without closing your eyes – try it next time!

ZZZZZZZ

The average person spends 229,961 hours asleep over the course of their lifetime – that’s 9,581 days!!!

Sleep

Everyone needs a different amount of sleep, and this changes as you grow up, but as a general guideline if your child is in elementary school they will need 10-11 hours a night.  Once they are over 10 years old, they need a little less, or 8-9 hours a night.

Run and Jump

Find ways to be active every day. Moving around is good for your brain, heart, lungs, and general overall health.  Play sports, tag, karate, kickball, or dance! It’s good to mix-up they type of activity as well so you hit different muscle groups and keep your bones healthy and strong.

Sports

The fastest growing sport among US school children in the last five years has been soccer.  It is popular among both girls and boys, is an easy sport to learn and play, and is exciting for youngsters.  Although it’s simple at first, strategy and advanced skills develop over time making the game more competitive as your children grow older.

Apples and Bananas

Your body needs minerals, vitamins, fiber, fats, and protein every day – do you know why though?  Minerals make your skin healthy and your bones and teeth strong.  Fiber helps your body digest food easier.  Vitamins help your body stay healthy and fight off disease.  Fats build healthy nerves and also help fight off disease.  Protein builds muscles and repairs damage.

Open Wide

Your mouth produces about one liter of saliva (that’s spit) each day! And did you know that your tongue has a unique “print” – kind of like your fingers?  Seeing the tongue’s potential as an ID verification tool, Chinese researchers have recently begun working on a 3D tongue image database.

If I Only Had a Brain

Your brain is sometimes more active when you’re asleep than when you’re awake. Oh, and did you know that the left side of your body is controlled by the right side of your brain while the right side is controlled by the left side?

Weird Body Facts

The average person has 67 different types of bacteria in their belly button.  Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour.   Your nose and ears continue growing throughout your entire life.  If you laid your blood vessels end to end it would cover 60,000 miles of space.  The human heart beats more than 3 billion times in an average lifespan and can pump up to 2,000 gallons of blood a day.

Mesa Pediatric Urgent Care and Gilbert Pediatric Urgent Care

Children often present different symptoms than adults and may need different prescriptions and treatments. AllKids pediatric providers are trained to know and recognize these differences, so your child receives the best health care available to them in the most urgent of circumstances. Both our Gilbert Pediatric Urgent Care and our Mesa Pediatric Urgent Care are open every day from noon to 10 pm. No appointment is necessary, just stop in and start your child on the road back to health.