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Epidemiological Paradox or Immigrant Vulnerability? Obesity Among Young Children of Immigrants
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Baker, Elizabeth H. Rendall, Michael S. Weden, Margaret M. |
| Copyright Year | 2015 |
| Description | According to the “immigrant epidemiological paradox,” immigrants and their children enjoy health advantages over their U.S.-born peers—advantages that diminish with greater acculturation. We investigated child obesity as a potentially significant deviation from this paradox for second-generation immigrant children. We evaluated two alternate measures of mother's acculturation: age at arrival in the United States and English language proficiency. To obtain sufficient numbers of second-generation immigrant children, we pooled samples across two related, nationally representative surveys. Each included measured (not parent-reported) height and weight of kindergartners. We also estimated models that alternately included and excluded mother's pre-pregnancy weight status as a predictor. Our findings are opposite to those predicted by the immigrant epidemiological paradox: children of U.S.-born mothers were less likely to be obese than otherwise similar children of foreign-born mothers; and the children of the least-acculturated immigrant mothers, as measured by low English language proficiency, were the most likely to be obese. Foreign-born mothers had lower (healthier) pre-pregnancy weight than U.S.-born mothers, and this was protective against their second-generation children's obesity. This protection, however, was not sufficiently strong to outweigh factors associated or correlated with the mothers' linguistic isolation and marginal status as immigrants. |
| Related Links | http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc4534321?pdf=render |
| Ending Page | 1320 |
| Page Count | 26 |
| Starting Page | 1295 |
| ISSN | 00703370 |
| e-ISSN | 15337790 |
| DOI | 10.1007/s13524-015-0404-3 |
| Journal | Demography |
| Issue Number | 4 |
| Volume Number | 52 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Duke University Press |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Demography Child Obesity Acculturation Hispanic |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
| Subject | Demography |
