How big is it?

The stomach is surprisingly small when it’s empty, “about the size of a person’s palm”, says Dr Paul Ng, a Hong Kong-based specialist in gastroenterology and hepatology. Yet as everyone with a good appetite knows, the stomach is elastic and can expand too many times that size. “There are two openings in the stomach” Ng explains. “Sometimes when there is a blockage at the lower opening (pylorus), gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) can occur, in which the stomach becomes extremely distended. Even when that happens, people would vomit instead of having their stomach torn apart by the accumulation, so the stomach doesn’t explode”.

It has some serious storage capacity. While your stomach is resting, it holds about 7 ounces of stomach acid and bile. However, it has the capacity to hold nearly a half-pound of food at a time if necessary. (The average capacity is about 32 ounces or a quarter-gallon.) It normally takes from four to six hours to digest one meal, so this capacity can be important. Depending on the position of your body and the amount of food inside it, your stomach is capable of alterations in size and shape. Your empty stomach is about 12 inches long. At its widest point, it’s about 6 inches across.