Are you pooping all wrong?
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What percentage of Americans experience bowel issues?
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Are you regular? That's a question that I remember hearing from older movies or sitcoms when I was a kid, and it took me a while to understand what it meant. That it was a delicate question to ask if your bathroom schedule was regular or disrupting your life.
40% of Americans report that their bowel habits disrupt their daily lives.
Wow.
Why is there a lack of education about bowel health in adults?
Isn't that a huge number? That's like almost half of us.
That's gastroenterologist and medical journalist Dr. Trisha Paswicha, who's taken it upon herself to help this 40% of people who need help.
There's a lot that we just don't talk about, don't know, and if we could just all of us lean in a little bit more to our physiology and know how our body is supposed to work, then I think we could solve a lot of this problem on our own.
Trisha's latest push to solve this problem is a new book called You've Been Pooping All Wrong. And she's never been shy when it comes to talking about, well, poop.
I grew up in a poop-positive family, and I hope I am currently raising a poop-positive family, but my dad was and is also a neurocastroenterologist, so we talked about poop all the time.
I was the same. Growing up in my family, we talked about going number two all the time. But for a lot of people, the education we get when it comes to going to the bathroom, it stops once we're out of our potty training phase, around two and a half or three years old. It's a huge issue.
I mean, for example, a lot of people can't poop at work. Well, a lot of us who don't have the luxury of working from home... The urge to go is going to strike.
What are the three P's of pooping according to Dr. Pasricha?
And, like, if you have decided that you just can't go, you're constipating yourself almost by choice. And you're creating a big problem for yourself later.
Today on the show, for your health and happiness, let's make pooping less taboo. A medical doctor shares what every person should know about going number two. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Shortwavers, we know your day doesn't stop, and neither do we. Whether you're starting your day or finishing a commute, we're right there with you. The NPR app has global and local news, plus hours and hours of this podcast ready and waiting for you. Download the NPR app today. Okay, back to the show. Okay, so, Dr. Trisha, can I call you that? Please. Dr. Trisha, you write that the heart of why people are pooping wrong starts with the fact that as a society, we do not talk about pooping.
I mean, other than me, I talk about pooping all the time. We're trying to change that today, starting with like, how are people pooping wrong?
How does squatting affect bowel movements?
Well, I think that people don't have a good framework for how to poop. And so I think about it in terms of three things, and I call these the three Ps. But one, I think that pliability. And that is how basically how soft or pillowy that poop is. More fiber. Often, but not always, but often the issue is fiber. And truthfully, 95% of Americans, we are not meeting our fiber goal. So like more often than not, you need more fiber. Propulsion is the other problem. Propulsion refers to how your muscles are generating these contractions in your own gut to push that poop forward. So that's the second P. And then the third mistake that can come into play is in our pelvic floor. And I think this is the most underappreciated part of it.
Like we were often like, oh yeah, we need more water. We need more fiber. how many of us are asking, what is my pelvic floor doing? And the pelvic floor is this complex set of more than a dozen muscles that kind of hold all of our internal organs together and kind of the floor of this box. And very paradoxically, when we bear down to have a bowel movement, we're building up all of this pressure in our chest cavities, but we're asking our sphincters to relax in that critical moment.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What percentage of Americans experience bowel issues?
0:00–0:51
2
Why is there a lack of education about bowel health in adults?
0:51–2:03
3
What are the three P's of pooping according to Dr. Pasricha?
2:03–3:16
4
How does squatting affect bowel movements?
3:16–5:18
5
What role does fiber play in bowel health?
5:18–6:31
6
How can pelvic floor health impact bowel function?
6:31–8:43
7
Can mental health affect gut health?
8:43–10:26
8
What practical tips can improve your pooping experience?
10:26–13:42
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Short Wave
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