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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Robyn Olin Greenfield¹, Doug Brugge¹, Angela C. Lee², and Roland Tang³. (1) Department of Public Health and Family Medicine, Tufts University, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111, 617-636-0326, robyn.greenfield@tufts.edu, (2) Tufts University, College of Liberal Arts, 424 Miller Hall, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, (3) South Cove Community Health Center, 885 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111

Despite nearly 12 million Asian Americans living in the United States and continued immigration, this increasingly substantial sub-population has consistently been left out of national obesity studies. When included in national studies, Chinese-American children have been grouped together with other Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders or simply as “other”, yielding significantly lower rates of overweight and obesity compared to non-Asians. There is a failure to recognize the ethnic diversity of Asian Americans as well as the effect of acculturation. Results from smaller studies of Chinese American youth suggest that they are adopting lifestyles less Chinese and more American and that their share of disease burden is growing. We screened 142 children from the waiting room of a community health center for height, weight and demographic profile. Body Mass Index was calculated and evaluated using CDC growth charts. Overall, 30.1% of children were above the 85th percentile for BMI, while 16.1% had BMI>95th percentile. Using a forward stepwise binary logistic regression we found being male and being born in the US to be statistically significant for BMI > 85th percentile (p=0.039, p=0.001, respectively). Our results suggest that overweight in this Chinese American immigrant population is associated with being born in the US. A change in public policy and framework for research are required to accurately asses the extent of overweight and obesity in Chinese American children. In particular large scale data should be stratified by age, sex, birthplace and measures of acculturation to identify those at risk and construct tailored interventions.

Learning Objectives: At the conclussion of the session, the participant in the session will be able to

• Articulate specific erros in methodology of prior large scale studies of Chinese Americans
• List specific factors contributing to obesity in Chinese American children.
• Develop an effective plan to study obesity in Chinese American children.
• Discuss potential interventions to combat obesity in this population.

Keywords: Asian Americans, Obesity

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation