Is there a connection between having an Appendectomy and being overweight?
 

I was looking through old photos of myself and wondering this. I was a thin child and got my apendix taken out shortly before my 6th birthday. Almost immediately thereafter I gained a LOT of weight for a child that age and have been battling with it my whole life....

What do you think?

I've never heard of a link between the two, but I'm also not a dr. Have you talked to yours about this?

google it? I can tell you I wasn't much older than that when I gained weight. Basically I had gotten old enough to sneak junk food and trade lunches with other kids at school

I've still got my appendix but gained a lot of weight between 6 and 8 years old. My DD was a skinny 6 year old but an overweight 8 year old too. I think its just an age when we are able to make more choices with what we eat and the activities we do. I was a bookworm and less active around that age when I could read independently.

Kitty

I was actually a very thin child until around age 5, when I had my tonsils out and started gaining weight about the same time.

I have read a theory (unproven, to my knowledge) that some of the obesity genes that have been identified can lie dormant until "triggered" by events that place stress on the body, such as viral/bacterial infection, injuries, or surgeries.

Do I think it played a role in my weight issues? Hmm, maybe - but I think there were probably other factors that probably played a larger role.

I was a premature baby (under 6 lbs) and was still very underweight when my parents brought me home/adopted me at about a month old. They and my grandparents were on a mission to "fatten me up," and they succeeded a bit too well.

It was also about this age that I was allowed to cross the street with my baby brother to visit my grandparents after dinner (my parents would watch from the sidewalk, where they could watch us all the way to grandma and grandpa's house). We'd usually get there just about the time they were sitting down to dinner and we'd be encouraged to eat a second dinner. My brother burned the extra calories off and I didn't. (he was very athletic, and I was a bookworm - I learned to read before kindergarten and was addicted to books).

I think that there were genetic and environmental factors, because I was the only person in my immediate and extended family to be overweight as a child. Even my younger sisters 14 and 16 years younger than I (raised in the 1980's and 1990's) had no weight problems in childhood (one has taken after mom and started gaining in her late 20's and the other has taken after my dad and has never had a weight problem except for a couple months after each pregnancy).

I think you also have to be aware that when you evaluate these things retrospectively, well, so many "events" are common in childhood. If you take any obese child, and look for some illness, surgery or other event in the preceding months or years, you are very likely to find something, just because so many things happen to so many children.