Effects of Acculturation on Mexican American Adults' Weight Control Practices

Purpose

An individual's or group's adaptation to a new culture requires psychological, sociocultural and behavioral changes. The process and rate of these adaptations, as well as the acceptance of or resistance to adapting, is known as acculturation. Previous studies have found acculturation to be a significant factor affecting immigrants' and their descendents' health behaviors in the host society (Masel, Rudkin, & Peek, 2006). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between acculturation and weight control practices in Mexican American adults who reside in the United States. Like their American counterparts, the obesity rates of Mexican Americans has increased over the past decades (Flegal, Ogden, & Carroll, 2005), and healthy eating and exercise behaviors are important strategies affecting weight management (Elfhag & Rösser, 2005).

Methods

Study participants were 775 Mexican Americans participating in the 2001-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, who had tried to lose and/or maintain their body weight during the past year (M_age = 33.36, SD_age =12.31). Acculturation was measured using the Short Acculturation Scale that consists of 4 items about language use (Cronbach's α = .95), and the participants were asked to remember methods of losing and/or maintaining weight (multiple responses allowed). The weight control practices were categorized into healthy diet (i.e., reducing calories, serving size, and/or fat, drinking more water), unhealthy diet (i.e., using liquid formulas, diet pills, and/or laxatives, skipping meals, vomiting), and exercise.

Analysis/Results

Controlling for sex, age, education level, poverty income ratio, marital status, self-reported health status and the previous year's body mass index, logistic regression analyses revealed that acculturation was a significant predictor of using unhealthy diet to lose weight (OR = 1.05, p<.05), exercising to lose weight (OR = 1.05, p<.01), and exercising to maintain weight (OR = .05, p<.05).

Conclusions

In sum, to lose weight and/or maintain their weight the more acculturated Mexican Americans tended to employ unhealthy dietary practices and to exercise. Health practitioners and researchers involved in weight control programs should devote attention to the higher acculturated and the lower acculturated Mexican Americans as a target population of healthy eating intervention and physical activity intervention, respectively.