What is the typical Western bowel movement?
In Western societies, normal stool frequency ranges from 2 to 3 times a day to 2 to 3 times a week. However, I have met patients who moved their bowels less frequently than every 12 days and this monumental task required a laxative or two. For someone on the American diet the urge to defecate can be accompanied by feelings ranging from mild discomfort to distressing pain, felt in the mid to lower abdomen. The active passage of the bowel movement is often accompanied by rectal pain and bright red rectal bleeding. Most commonly a stool formed from the typical American diet requires muscular straining to pass recall the grunting and groaning sounds echoing from the bathroom walls. The time required for the typical bowel movement can be measured by the length of one to two stories in Readers Digest. After all that effort, more often than not, one is left with a feeling of incomplete emptying. The stool itself varies from tiny rock hard fecal marbles to tubular play dough, about an inch in
