A Moving Paradox: A Binational View of Obesity and Residential Mobility

Abstract

This paper takes a unique approach to the study of immigrant and native health differentials by addressing the role of internal as well as international mobility and considering the binational context in which such moves occur. The analyses take advantage of a unique dataset of urban residents in Mexico and the United States to compare Mexican origin immigrants and US-born Spanish-speaking residents in one urban setting in the United States and residents in a similar urban setting in Mexico. The binational approach allows for the test of standard indicators used to proxy acculturation (duration of residence in the United States, household language use) and measures of residential mobility among Mexican-Americans, Mexican immigrants and residents in Mexico. The results confirm a lower prevalence of obesity among Mexicans in Mexico and recent immigrants to the United States when compared to longer residents in the United States. However, for Mexican urban residents, more residential moves are associated with less obesity, while more residential mobility is associated with higher obesity in the urban sample in the United States.

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Metabolic Syndrome and Its Components in Latino Immigrants to the USA

“…Only two studies stratified Brazilian immigrants in their analyses [30,47]. Regarding country of origin of the immigrants studied, 14 studies involved Mexicans only [15,26,27,42,43,52,64,65,[74][75][76][77]79,81], 11 Mexicans and other Latinos [16,33,34,36,49,51,54,61,63,66,67], 10 investigated immigrants from South and Central America (Brazil [30,47], Haiti [30,32], El Salvador [30,40], Colombia [30], Guatemala [30,40], Dominican Republic [30,46], Honduras [30,40], Peru [40], Bolivia [40], Puerto Rico [32,46], Mexico [46], Guyana [82] and other unspecified coun-tries [32,35,…”

“…Length of residence of the immigrants in the USA was assessed in 36 studies. Of these publications, 12 stratified length of residence into <10 years and >10 years [26,28,32,34,35,38,39,42,58,70,78,81]. The other studies included immigrants with <10 years of residence in the USA [30,65], <15 and >15 years [29,44,53,54,56], <20 and >20 years [41,50,66,74,80], or <25 and >25 years of residence [14].…”

“…Immigrant-Related Health-, Dietary-, and Lifestyle-Related Community-Related generational status [14] nativity [26,35,42,54,72] health behaviors [16,34] immigrant concentration [49,68] length of residence in USA [14,26,36,39,47,72,81] agricultural work [31,33,61] health assimilation; health literacy; nutrition transition; dietary characteristics [41,47,51,80] community factors [58,68] migration history [34] income; sociodemographic factors [31,32,47,53,68,70] healthcare services access and utilization [56,62] immigration [15,[27][28][29][30][31]45,82] ethnicity [37,44] food insecurity [64,65] acculturation …”

Prevalence and Determinants of Overweight and Obesity in Preschoolers in Miami-Dade County

“…Immediate factors such as the child's dietary and physical activity behaviors present a more direct effect in the development of childhood obesity (arrow 6). Living in immigrant enclaves may be differentially protective for Hispanic children based on individual and household factors (Glick & Yabiku, 2015). While higher immigrant density may be significantly more protective for lower income children, it may be less protective for those in worse general health, including those with higher BMI measures (Kim et al, 2014).…”

“…Factors such as nativity, migration history, including time since immigration, number of residential moves, duration of residency, and intensity of exposures between and within places need to be considered with differential individual experiences though the life course (Daniel et al, 2008). Some of these factors have been associated with increasing weight status in Hispanic ethnic minorities (Glick & Yabiku, 2015;Goulao, Santos, & Carmo, 2015). The life-course perspective is necessary to frame the mechanisms by which risk factors in the early childhood period may contribute to the development of chronic diseases such as obesity during the life trajectory (Acevedo-Garcia et al, 2013;Daniel et al, 2008).…”