Skip Navigation

Celebrating Our 1 Billionth Visitor!

Celebrating Our 1 Billionth Visitor!

How Many Is a Billion?

billion celebrates its 1 billionth visitor this month — that's a lot of visits to our website! But a billion is so many it's hard to picture. Here's what the number looks like: 1,000,000,000. And here are a few examples:

  • A stack of 100 pennies is just over 6 inches high. A stack of million pennies is about 1 mile tall. And a stack of 1 billion pennies is about 1,000 miles tall.
  • It's 93 million miles from the Earth to the Sun, so you could go back and forth 10 times and still not travel 1 billion miles.
  • In your very smart brain, you have 100 billion neurons, or nerve cells.

If you could have 1 billion of something what would it be? Tell us!

Meet Dr. Izenberg!

In honor of hitting the 1 billion mark, we interviewed the founder of, Dr. Neil Izenberg. Dr. Izenberg started KidsHealth way back in 1995. Were you even born? That was when the Internet was so new that only a few people used it or even understood what it was.

Q: How do you know 1 billion people really visited

A: One of our computers at KidsHealth counts visitors as they come to the site. That's way too many for me to count personally — a billion is a huge number!

Q: Were computers around when you were a kid? How did you get information about the body and health?

A: Sure, computers were around, but they weren't common. Back then, computers were so big that they took up the space of an entire room and only large companies had them. But there wasn't any Internet — if you wanted health information, you had to go to the library or your doctor or medical books. It was really hard to get answers to questions.

Q: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

A: Originally, I wanted to be an anthropologist. That's someone who learns about different people and cultures all over the world. It's a great thing to become if you like to help people.

Q: Why did you decide to be a kids' doctor? How old were you when you made that decision?

A: Some people seem to know what they want to be when they're young, but I didn't know until I went to college. My older brother was a doctor and it seemed to me that becoming a kid's doctor would be a great mixture of working with science and working with people. Being a doctor who worked with kids would be something I'd really like.

Q: How did you come up with the idea of starting KidsHealth?

A: As a pediatrician (that's a fancy name for a kids' doctor) I was always looking for better ways to make things understandable and interesting. Health is all about life. What could be more interesting? But sometimes learning about health can seem boring or confusing. I thought making a really interesting website about children's health could be the best way for everyone to learn want they wanted to know.

Q: What do kids say they like best about KidsHealth?

A: Kids tell us that they like how we tell about things in ways they can understand — and that we're not too complicated. They also tell us they like seeing our videos about how the human body works and reading our questions and answers about icky stuff, like boogers and burps.

Q: What do you like best about being the boss of KidsHealth?

A: I really enjoy working with a lot of very smart and creative people who are dedicated to making KidsHealth the best, most interesting health site on the web. It's great going to work every day.

Q: What's your favorite thing to do to stay healthy?

A: I exercise for about an hour just about every day — and try to eat foods that are good for me, but still taste delicious. Of course, breathing fresh air is a good thing to do. I don't smoke and I never will.

Q: If you could get 1 billion of anything (in addition to website visitors, of course), what would you wish for?

A: Let's see, how about billion belly laughs, a billion oatmeal raisin cookies (well, maybe that's a little too fattening), and of course, a billion more wishes. But seriously, how about a billion healthy families? Since there are a little over 6 billion people on earth, there are probably about a billion families in the world. That would be a good thing to wish for.


© 1995- The Nemours Foundation. All rights reserved.