Journal
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Volume 78, Issue -, Pages 1-8Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.10.023
Keywords
USA; Adolescent; Children; Obesity; Hispanic and Latino; Immigrant populations
Funding
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [R01HD051764, R01HD058514, R24HD047879]
- Human Resources and Services Administration MCH Branch [R40MC08726-01-01]
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania
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Obesity among the Mexican-origin adult population in the US has been associated with longer stays in the US and with being US- vs. Mexican-born, two proxies for acculturation. This pattern is less clear for Mexican-origin children and young adults: recent evidence suggests that it may be reversed, with foreign-born Mexican youth in the US at higher risk of obesity than their US-born Mexican American counterparts. The objective of this study is to evaluate the hypothesis that the immigrant advantage in obesity prevalence for Mexican-origin populations in the US does not hold for children and young adults. We use data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (N = 1143) and the California Health Interview Survey (N = 25,487) for respondents ages 4-24 to calculate the odds of overweight/obesity by ethnicity and nativity. We find support for the hypothesis that overweight/obesity prevalence is not significantly lower for first-generation compared to second- and third-generation Mexican-origin youth. Significantly higher obesity prevalence among the first generation was observed for young adult males (ages 18-24) and adolescent females (ages 12-17). The previously-observed protective effect against obesity risk among recent adult immigrants does not hold for Mexican-origin youth. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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