U.S. Immigrants Risk Their Health

Millions of immigrants come to the U.S. in search for a job, a better education, a better life, but remaining here seems to be damaging to their health. On their arrival in the land of all possibilities, they are healthier than the normal American. But after 5 years of staying here this situation changes.

The time they spend in America increases the immigrants' risks of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. They adopt the American diet, the worst in the world, they get unhealthy jobs in high-risk construction or pesticide-polluted field picking.

A survey conducted on 200,000 subjects divided the immigrant population into non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics, Blacks and Asians. It was found that 22% of the immigrants who have been in the country for more than five years are more obese compared to the 16.1% who are in the country for less time. High blood pressure is 19.8% more risky for the ones who settled here for more than five years. Diabetes risk rose from 6.9% to 7.5% and heart disease risk from 3.5% to 5.4%.

22.9% of Americans are obese, 24.3% have high blood pressure, 6.1% are diabetic, and 7.6% have heart conditions. Among the immigrants in the country, according to the report, 29.8% are obese, 24.5% report high blood pressure, 10.8% are diabetic, and 7.6% have heart diseases.

For these immigrants who stayed in the country for more than five years, smoking declined from 15.3% to 13.8%, this being the one good news of the study.

Researcher Achintya N.Dey, co-author, stated, trying to explain the result: "Healthy people immigrate. That could be the reason. It's their new lifestyle. Their diets change. Their habits change. Their health starts to deteriorate. They take higher risks. They do things Americans wouldn't do. They take construction jobs that require them to go up on roofs. Sometimes they're exposed to pesticides. They want to work hard and produce as much as they can to send to their relatives back home."