VARIATION AND CONVERGENCE IN EDUCATION GRADIENT ON FEMALE IMMIGRANTS' OVERWEIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES: CONCERNS OF PRE-MIGRATION CONTEXTS AND ASSIMILATION
Open Access
- Author:
- Jeon, Ha Ram
- Graduate Program:
- Educational Theory and Policy
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 06, 2015
- Committee Members:
- David P Baker, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Katerina Bodovski, Committee Member
Soo Yong Byun, Committee Member
Jennifer Lynne Van Hook, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Education gradient
Overweight
Obesity
Immigrant's health - Abstract:
- Education is widely believed to relieve the increasing risk of obesity among Americans by enhancing cognitive decision-making ability for choosing health foods and lifestyles. However, despite the common belief on the effect of education on enhancing health, recent comparative research reported that the association between education and obesity, especially in developing countries, was mixed largely due to different population contexts from developed countries. The moderating effects of population contexts on the association between education and the likelihood of being overweight were examined for female foreign-born immigrants in the United States. Previous research focused on different national development level of the countries of origin as a key indicator causing the variation of education-overweigh gradient among immigrant population. However, preexisting studies lack the detailed information on different contributions to moderating education gradient by specific national indicators. Distinguished from the previous literature, different moderating effects on education gradient by various measures for pre-migration environment were highlighted, using the national-level indicators: life expectancy, national level of educational expansion, GDP per capita, and national nutrition transition status. As a result, while life expectancy and GDP per capita in pre-migration settings were not statistically significant to predict the likelihood of being overweight among immigrant population and the variation of education gradient, educational expansion level and nutritional status had significant moderating effects on education gradient on overweight. In addition, it was observed that the patterns of convergence were slightly different by national moderators. After the arrival at the United States, less educated immigrants from the origin countries with the lower level of nutrition transition became much more vulnerable to the risk of being overweight. In pre-migration settings, they were uniquely protected from weight gains because of less prevalence of energy-dense foods, regardless of educational attainment. However, after their arrival at the United States, they were forced to accept westernized diet styles consisting of high animal fat and sugar/sweeteners and less educated people became more extremely disadvantaged in keeping healthy body shapes. On the contrary, there was no significant pattern of convergence of the moderating effect of national level of education expansion.