scholarly journals Becoming Overweight without Gaining a Pound: Weight Evaluations and the Social Integration of Mexicans in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire E. Altman ◽  
Jennifer Van Hook ◽  
Jonathan Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Weight Status ◽  
White Women ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Mexican Women ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
Body Sizes

Mexican women gain weight with increasing duration in the United States. In the United States, body dissatisfaction tends to be associated with depression, disordered eating, and incongruent weight evaluations, particularly among white women and women of higher socioeconomic status. However, it remains unclear how being overweight and obesity are interpreted by Mexican women. Using comparable data of women aged 20–64 from both Mexico (the 2006 Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutricion; N = 17,012) and the United States (the 1999–2009 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys; N = 8,487), we compare weight status evaluations among Mexican nationals, Mexican immigrants, US-born Mexicans, US-born non-Hispanic whites, and US-born non-Hispanic blacks. Logistic regression analyses, which control for demographic and socioeconomic variables and measured body mass index and adjust for the likelihood of migration for Mexican nationals, indicate that the tendency to self-evaluate as overweight among Mexicans converges with levels among non-Hispanic whites and diverges from blacks over time in the United States. Overall, the results suggest a US integration process in which Mexican-American women's less critical self-evaluations originate in Mexico but fade with time in the United States as they gradually adopt US white norms for thinner body sizes. These results are discussed in light of prior research about social comparison and negative health assimilation.

scholarly journals Hispanic Maternal Perception of Preschoolers’ Bodyweight Status in Samples from the United States of America and Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 1101-1101
Author(s):  
Summer Wilmoth ◽  
Yolanda Flores-Peña ◽  
Leah Carrillo ◽  
Elana Martinez ◽  
Erica Sosa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Childhood Obesity ◽  
Obesity Prevention ◽  
Weight Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Actual Rate ◽  
Actual Weight ◽  
Hispanic Mothers ◽  
The Us

Abstract Objectives Childhood obesity is a major public health concern, which disproportionally affects Hispanic children in the United States (US) and Mexico. Mothers are key influencers to their children's health and growth. As part of a pilot obesity prevention study, Hispanic mothers’ perception of their preschoolers’ weight status was assessed to inform the development of intervention strategies. Methods Study subjects were Hispanic mothers and their preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5 enrolled in participating Head Star Centers in Texas, US or kindergartens in Northern Mexico. Upon informed consent, mothers completed a self-administered questionnaire assessing their perception of their preschoolers’ weight status. Preschoolers’ body weight and height were measured; and their actual weight status was classified using the CDC's age and gender specific BMI references. Results Preliminary data included 85 and 294 child-mother pairs from US and Mexico, respectively. The US sample had a higher rate of overweight and obesity (35%) in comparison to the Mexico sample (19%). There was a great discrepancy between mothers’ perception and their children's actual weight status in both samples. Although only approximately 5% of children were underweight, 14% of American and 24% of Mexican mothers perceived their children being underweight. Contrarily, only 4.8% of American mothers perceived their children as a little overweight or obese, as compared to the actual rate of 35%. Similarly, only 5% of Mexican mothers perceived their children as a little overweight or obese, as compared to the actual rate of 19%. Conclusions Hispanic mothers in the US and Mexico appear to worry about their normal weight children being underweight, while overlooking the overweight and obesity problem. Early childhood obesity prevention programming is needed to aggressively address Hispanic mothers’ preference of chubby children, and the mothers’ underestimation of overweight and obesity among their preschoolers. Funding Sources The Mexico's National Science and Technology Council & The Kellogg´s Institute of Nutrition and Health.

The Mexican Revolution in Chicago

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Flores
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Mexican State ◽  
Wide Range

This book examines the political, labor, and assimilation history of Mexican immigrants in metropolitan Chicago during the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning in the mid-1920s and extending into the years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Cold War, Mexican immigrants engaged in a wide-range of political activism, and their political beliefs were shaped by the Mexican Revolution. Mexican immigrant political activists included men and women, middle-class businessmen and professionals, and blue-collar laborers from urban and rural backgrounds. Over time, Mexican immigrants formed distinct conservative, liberal, and radical transnational societies that competed with each other to mold the identities and influence the political beliefs of the broader Mexican, Mexican American, and Latino populations of Chicago and Northwest Indiana. Initially, Mexican conservatives, liberals, and radicals all defined themselves as patriots loyal to the Mexican state, but over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, profound political events in Mexico and in the United States led the conservatives to become the most critical of the Mexican state and the most amenable to U.S. naturalization. While the liberals and radicals tended to decline U.S. citizenship, conservative Mexican Catholics become U.S. citizens in great numbers, and they did so because they sought to protect themselves from both the anticlerical policies of Mexican government and from the deportation policies of the United States government.

scholarly journals Social Determinants of Polypharmacy in First Generation Mexican Immigrants in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 86-90
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari ◽  
Mohammed Saqib ◽  
Cheryl Wisseh ◽  
Mohsen Bazargan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Born

Introduction: Socioeconomic status (SES) indicators are among the main social determinants of health and illness. Less, however, is known about the role of SES in the epidemiology of polypharmacy in immigrant Latino Americans living in the United States. This research studied the association between three SES indicators, education, income, and employment, and polypharmacy in older first generation Latino American immigrant adults. Methods: Data was obtained from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging (SALSA, 1996-2008). A total of 632 older first generation Mexican-American immigrants to the U.S. entered this analysis. The independent variables were education, income, and employment. Polypharmacy was the outcome. Age, gender, physical health, smoking, and drinking were the covariates. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the data. Results: Employment was associated with lower odds of polypharmacy. The association between education and polypharmacy was above and beyond demographic factors, physical health, health behaviors, and health insurance. Neither education nor income were associated with polypharmacy. Other determinants of polypharmacy were poor self-rated health (SRH) and a higher number of chronic medical conditions (CMCs). Conclusion: Employment appears to be the major SES determinant of polypharmacy in older foreign-born Mexican Americans. Unemployed older Mexican American immigrants with multiple chronic diseases and those who have poor SRH have the highest need for an evaluation of polypharmacy. Given the age group of this population, most of them have health insurance, which provides an opportunity for reducing their polypharmacy.

scholarly journals Characteristics and risk factors of rheumatoid arthritis in the United States: an NHANES analysis

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e4035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bei Xu ◽  
Jin Lin
Keyword(s):  
Rheumatoid Arthritis ◽  
United States ◽  
Odds Ratio ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Multivariable Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Exclusion Criteria ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
Hispanic White

Background We examined the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database to determine factors associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in adults 20 to 55 years of age. Methods NHANES data collected between 2007 and 2014, excluding the 2011–2012 period, were used. Subjects were divided into those with and without RA. Demographic, clinical, and lifestyle factors were compared between the groups. Results After applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, 8,789 persons were included in the study (8,483 without RA, 306 with RA). Multivariable analysis indicated that advanced age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.09, 95% CI [1.07–1.11], P < 0.001), regular smoking (OR = 2.19, 95% CI [1.49–3.21], P < 0.001), diabetes (OR = 2.00, 95% CI [1.35–2.95], P = 0.001), obesity (reference, normal or underweight; OR = 3.31, 95% CI [2.05–5.36], P < 0.001), and osteoporosis (OR = 3.68, 95% CI [1.64–8.22], P = 0.002) were positively associated with RA. Covered by health insurance (OR = 1.81, 95% CI [1.12–2.93], P = 0.016) and living in poverty (OR = 2.96, 95% CI [1.88–4.65], P < 0.001) were also associated with having RA. Mexican American, Hispanic white or other Hispanic ethnicity (reference, non-Hispanic white; OR = 0.54, 95% CI [0.31–0.96], P = 0.036), appropriate sleep duration (about 6–11 h, OR = 0.46, 95% CI [0.32–0.65], P < 0.001), and insufficient vitamin A intake (reference, recommended; OR = 0.70, 95% CI [0.50–0.98], P = 0.036) were negatively associated with RA. Discussion Some factors associated with RA are potentially modifiable.

scholarly journals Measuring Distributional Inequality: Relative Body Mass Index Distributions by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Education, United States (1999–2006)

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian C. Houle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Body Mass Index ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
White Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
Relative Distribution ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Race And Education ◽  
The Right

Few studies consider obesity inequalities as a distributional property. This study uses relative distribution methods to explore inequalities in body mass index (BMI; kg/m2). Data from 1999–2006 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used to compare BMI distributions by gender, Black/White race, and education subgroups in the United States. For men, comparisons between Whites and Blacks show a polarized relative distribution, with more Black men at increased risk of over or underweight. Comparisons by education (overall and within race/ethnic groups) effects also show a polarized relative distribution, with more cases of the least educated men at the upper and lower tails of the BMI distribution. For women, Blacks have a greater probability of high BMI values largely due to a right-shifted BMI distribution relative to White women. Women with less education also have a BMI distribution shifted to the right compared to the most educated women.

scholarly journals The Influence of Physician Acknowledgment of Patients' Weight Status on Patient Perceptions of Overweight and Obesity in the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 171 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Post ◽  
Arch G. Mainous ◽  
Seth H. Gregorie ◽  
Michele E. Knoll ◽  
Vanessa A. Diaz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Weight Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Patient Perceptions

“IT'S A LOT OF WORK”

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Mexican Women ◽  
Mexican American Women ◽  
Mexican Immigrant Women

AbstractExplanations for immigrant and Latino health outcomes often invoke culture through the use of the concept of acculturation. The use of acculturation models in health research has been, however, the topic of growing debate. Critics of acculturation-based explanations point out that despite the growing psychometric sophistication in measuring acculturation, the concept and its underlying assumptions remain flawed. Specifically, questions regarding how Mexicans experience and make sense of the ethnoracial structure of the United States and how racialization processes impact health and well-being remain largely ignored within acculturation-based models. By examining the processes Mexican women engage in as they construct ethnic identities within a stigmatizing social environment in the United States, this paper contributes answers to these questions. Based on a qualitative analysis of forty in-depth interviews conducted with first-generation Mexican immigrant women and second-generation Mexican American women in Detroit, this paper describes how Mexican women work through the tensions and complexities embedded in the process of constructing a sense of ethnic belonging while, at the same time, confronting and resisting racial stereotypes of Mexicans in the United States. Women's narratives suggest that the stress involved in negotiating ethnic identities under stigmatizing environments might be one of the ways in which living in a racialized society affects health outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for Latino and immigrant health.

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