Plasticity, political economy, and physical growth status of Guatemala Maya children living in the United States

Abstract

Migration of Maya refugees to the United States since the late 1970s affords the opportunity to study the consequences of life in a new environment on the growth of Maya children. The children of this study live in Indiantown, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. Maya children between 4 and 14 years old (n = 240) were measured for height, weight, fatness, and muscularity. Overall, compared with reference data for the United States, the Maya children are, on average, healthy and well nourished. They are taller and heavier and carry more fat and muscle mass than Maya children living in a village in Guatemala. However, they are shorter, on average, than children of black, Mexican-American, and white ethnicity living in Indiantown. Children of Maya immigrants born in the United States tend to be taller than immigrant children born in Guatemala or Mexico. Families that invest economic and social resources in their children have taller children. More economic successful families have taller children. Migration theory and political economy theory from the social sciences are combined with plasticity theory and life history theory (parental investment) from biology to interpret these data.

As tall as my peers – similarity in body height between migrants and hosts

“…The Maya-American children considered in this study reside in Indiantown, Florida (a rural community) and Los Angeles, California. The history of Maya immigration into these two communities, described elsewhere by Ashbranner & Conklin (1986), Burns (1993), Loucky (1996) and Bogin & Loucky (1997), is here briefly reviewed to provide a general description of the biocultural environment of the refugees of the present study. Civil war in Guatemala from the early 1970s to 1986 resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Maya and the exodus of more than 250,000 into Mexico and, eventually, into the United States.…”

Population differences in the postcrania of modern South Africans and the implications for ancestry estimation

“…For example, long bone lengths and epiphyseal breadths have been correlated to climate, specifically minimum average temperatures [27]. Similarly, stature is frequently correlated with socioeconomic status (SES), where lower SES typically results in shorter stature [28,29]. Yet the genetic contribution to postcranial variation is often overlooked.…”

Impact of the health and living conditions of migrant and non-migrant Senegalese adolescent girls on their nutritional status and growth

“…Malnutrition levels for the poor in an urban environment are close to those of the poor in a rural environment 10,16 . Finally, factors such as adoption 17 , migration from developing to industrialised countries 18 , and rural-urban migration 19 -22 are important determinants of nutritional status and growth of adolescents from developing countries because of the improvement in socio-economic status and behavioural changes that they bring about.…”