Obesity and Obesogenic Behaviors in Asian American Children with Immigrant and US-Born Mothers

Abstract

Child obesity is understudied in Asian Americans, which include a growing population of recent immigrants. We examined the relationship between maternal nativity and time in the US, and obesity and obesogenic behaviors among Asian American children. We analyzed public-use data from the 2013–2016 California Health Interview Survey for Asian American children ages 2 to 11 years. We used logistic regression to determine the odds of obesity and obesogenic behaviors associated with maternal nativity and time in the US. This study included n = 609 children. Children of US-born mothers had lower odds of obesity (adjusted odds ratio, AOR, 0.12; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.91) and lower fruit intake (AOR 0.15, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.81) than children of recent immigrants (< 5 years in the US). Asian American children with recent immigrant mothers are more likely to be obese and eat less fruit than children with US-born mothers. Efforts to prevent obesity and increase fruit consumption are particularly important for this vulnerable population of children of recent immigrants.

Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity in Children of Immigrant Origin in Spain: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…In the present study, it was observed that children of immigrant origin showed higher levels of OW/OB than natives, and a higher adjusted risk of having OW/OB. This is consistent with other studies conducted in the United States [22], Europe [23,24], and Spain [25][26][27][28] which suggest that the immigrant origin of parents may be a risk factor in the development of excess weight in childhood. In Spain, there are several national studies on diet and childhood obesity [29,30], but they do not consider possible differences between natives and immigrants.…”

“…The choice of food type may also be determined by the availability and affordability of food in the family's immediate food environment [33,34]. Additionally, in different studies [22][23][24][25], socioeconomic status has been associated with the development of excess weight, with a higher prevalence of obesity being found in those with lower incomes, demonstrating data similar to those of the present study. Similarly, the present study shows that, for the same social class, overweight/obesity tends to be higher in children of immigrant origin.…”

Body Composition, Physical Activity, and Convenience Food Consumption among Asian American Youth: 2011–2018 NHANES

“…On the other hand, greater acculturation did not change their poorer health behavior (lower daily physical activity prevalence) in a positive direction. These findings generally support the “negative acculturation theory.” However, acculturation negatively influenced excess body weight only among Asian American boys, but not girls, which is in line with some prior study findings [ 38 , 39 ], but not all [ 40 ]. The sex difference in the acculturation effect could be due to the sex difference in the US cultural norms for body image: norms of muscularity for males and slimness for females [ 38 ].…”

Overcoming constraints of the model minority stereotype to advance Asian American health.

“…By incorporating community-based approaches to investigate biopsychosocial correlates of health, psychology has much to contribute to understanding variations in Asian American health not fully explained by demographic and health care access factors (Elewonibi et al, 2018; Ryu et al, 2013). Many understudied topics are also in need of psychological research (e.g., sleep [Hall et al, 2009] and eating behaviors [Argueza et al, 2020]), particularly using multilevel designs. Contributions from psychology also are needed to test and revise existing constructs and models (Hall et al, 2016) to increase knowledge for improving Asian Americans’ health.…”