PROJECT 2: OBESITY AMONG MEXICAN CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS

项目二的重点是5-14岁墨西哥移民子女的肥胖问题。与所有其他孩子相比，移民家庭中的墨西哥裔男孩肥胖率特别高，包括当地家庭中的西班牙裔男孩。这项拟议的研究将考察移民到美国的情况和家庭， 在美国，学校和社区环境对墨西哥移民子女的肥胖风险有独立和共同的影响。这项研究将强调儿童环境的两个方面：经济劣势的程度和儿童接触更广泛的环境的程度 墨西哥社区以外的美国社会。这些因素代表了同化(文化和经济)的重要方面，并被理论上以复杂的方式塑造儿童的环境，从而提高和降低肥胖的风险。拟议研究的一个创新部分是考虑移徙过程本身如何影响儿童的体重。这项研究将远远超出 通过比较生活在墨西哥的儿童和生活在美国的墨西哥移民的儿童，以及使用倾向分数来比较墨西哥移民的儿童和父母有较高移民倾向的墨西哥儿童，对儿童体重进行了先前的研究。另一项创新是，该项目将使用NHIS-OIS的数据来评估父母的法律地位对儿童体重的作用。最后，第三个创新是，这项研究将把文化适应和社会支持的概念分解成可能降低对肥胖的抵抗力的成分，以及可能增加肥胖风险的成分。研究小组将研究这些因素是如何独立和共同与儿童体重相关的。例如，我们假设低文化适应程度在墨西哥社会化的一个方面与生更重的孩子有关。但我们预计，低文化适应(与美国主流社会隔绝)的另一个方面会产生相反的效果，因为它减少了对美国顺从环境的暴露。

Project II focuses on obesity among the children of Mexican immigrants ages 5-14. Mexican-origin boys in immigrant families have particularly high obesity rates relative to all other children, including Hispanic boys in native families. The proposed research will examine how immigration to the United States¿and family, school, and neighborhood contexts within the United States¿independently and jointly influence the risk of obesity among children of Mexican immigrants. The research will emphasize two aspects of children's contexts: the level of economic disadvantage and the degree to which they expose children to the wider American society beyond the Mexican community. These factors represent important dimensions of assimilation (cultural and economic) and are theorized to shape children's environments in complex ways that raise and lower the risk of obesity. An innovative component of the proposed research is its consideration of how the migration process itself affects children's weight. The research will go far beyond prior research on children's weight by comparing children living in Mexico with children of Mexican immigrants living in the United States, and by using propensity scores to compare children of Mexican immigrants with children living in Mexico whose parents have a high propensity to migrate. Another innovation is that the project will assess the role of parental legal status on children's weight using data from the NHIS-OIS. Finally, a third innovation is that the research will unpack the concepts of acculturation and SES into components that are likely to reduce resistance to obesity and components that are likely to increase exposure to the risk of obesity. The research team will examine how these are independently and jointly related to children's weight. For example, we hypothesize that one aspect of low acculturation¿being socialized in Mexico¿is associated with having heavier children. But we expect another aspect of low acculturation¿social isolation from the U.S. mainstream¿to have the opposite effect because it reduces exposure to the U.S. obesiogenic environment.