Show Summary Details

Page of

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Global Public Health. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 22 April 2025

Migration and Obesitylocked

Migration and Obesitylocked

  • Solveig A. CunninghamSolveig A. CunninghamDepartment of Global Health, Emory University
  • , and Hadewijch VandenheedeHadewijch VandenheedeDepartment of Interface Demography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Summary

There are over 230 million international migrants worldwide, and this number continues to grow. Migrants tend to have limited access to and knowledge about resources and preventative care in their communities of reception, but nonetheless they are often in better health by many measures compared with native-born people in their communities of reception and with the people they left behind at their place of origin. With time since arrival, however, immigrants’ health advantages often dissipate and they experience increases in health problems, especially obesity and diabetes, which are chronic diseases that are increasingly prevalent in the overall population as well and are associated with multiple co-morbidities and limitations. It may be that immigrants have specific health endowments leading to these health patterns, or that the processes involved in migration, including exposure to new environments, behavioral change, and stress of migration may also affect risks of obesity and other chronic conditions. Understanding the health patterns of migrants can be useful in identifying their specific health needs, as well as contributing to our understanding of how specific environments, changes in environments, and individual health endowments interplay to shape the long-term health of populations.

Subjects

  • Epidemiology
  • Global Health
  • Special Populations

You do not currently have access to this article

Login

Please login to access the full content.

Subscribe

Access to the full content requires a subscription