Important For Survival Over Food example essay topic

An average, but healthy, person is capable of surviving without food for forty or more days, however, that same person would not be able to survive for more than three to five days without water. It is very important to keep water going in the human body because of a couple of reasons. The body is primarily composed of water and the balance of the water in a human is critical. Once the water level starts to decrease, cells in the body cannot be hydrated and a person will start to go through dehydration.

An average person is able to survive with little or no food for a long amount of time because food is not as vital for survival. Digestion can take many hours to complete so a little amount of food can go a long way. It is estimated that a full grown adult that is in fairly good shape is able to go about forty days without any or the less than adequate amount of food needed. The digestion of food, however, does use up some of the water that is contained in a human, making that person more thirsty / dehydrated than what he / she already is.

Cells need more water than they do need food in order to operate properly. When food is being digested, it takes many hours to go through the digestion cycle. Food must be broken up and absorbed properly before it is able to make its way through the other digestive organs. This is why a little bit of food will allow a person to last a lot longer than if the person had little water. Water is used in almost every motion that a person makes. For example, sweat secretes out of sweat glands almost twenty-four hours a day.

Most sweat is evaporated before it is noticed, but the average person can sweat a couple of gallons before he / she will even notice anything. This is one of the biggest reasons that water is so important for survival over food. The nutrients that are found in food are not essential for survival. The purpose of food can be replaced by using the body's stored energy. This form of stored energy is fat. As a person goes for a while without eating, he / she will first slowly become hungrier and hungrier until eventually the body decided to start using fat as a form of energy.

Fat is burned up in the body and can be used as a form of energy rather than eating. Water, on the other hand, does not have a way to substitute itself without actually being present. It is amazing that a few key variables can make such an impact on how many days a person is able to survive without food as opposed to without water. It is very important to know and understand that a person will live about ten times longer without food than he / she would without water. Every person is different with these variables, but the process that cells go through, and the way food is digested and used is the same in every person that is alive.