“Okay by Me in Amairrrica!”

In among the seasonal anti-fat scare stories comes one from JAMA that recently piqued my interest: it's from a study of approximately 4,500 immigrants who were surveyed in a 2000 national health survey. Prior to their immigration, some 8% of this group were considered "obese" (as defined by the jiggered standards of BMI), while the number jumped to 19% among those who had been here at least fifteen. This is still lower than the average for U.S.-born residents (about 22%) but still enough to generate "Coming to America Makes You Fat" scarelines in the press.

The report's authors not unsurprisingly say that this data sends a "sobering message." But since previous reports have also shown that immigrants "tend to have healthier habits, including less smoking and drug use" and longer life spans than U.S.-born citizens, I can't help wondering if this data doesn't present an opportunity to truly examine if obesity really is the culprit in so many health issues. By more closely examining if these fatter immigrants had the same amount of so-called "obesity related" illnesses as their U.S.-bred cousins suffer, it strikes me that researchers have an opportunity to – on a limited scale, at least – get a better sense of fatness' real place as an indicator of possible future ill health. (Could it just possibly be that habits like smoking and drug usage are more reliable predictors than fatness?) Perhaps the message isn't as "sobering" as the medical community and media have so reflexively assumed?