Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Childhood obesity is on the rise in Canada, but we do not know much about this serious health issue in immigrant children and youth. Studies in the United States have found that immigrant youth born in another country were less obese than immigrant youth born in the United States. This study will look at the link between when a child's family immigrated to Canada and his or her level of obesity. Some risk factors that may shape this link will also be studied. One of these risk factors is stress from acculturation. Acculturation is the changes that happen when people from two different cultures are in contact with each other. It is often stressful, especially for young people, and this may lead to obesity. Acculturation to a Canadian way of life is another risk factor. Immigrant youth who take on a Canadian lifestyle may gain more weight than those who do not. This study will also look at socioeconomic status. Usually poorer people are more overweight, but immigrants are often poorer and less overweight. We will try to understand why this is. Last, we will look at ethnicity as a risk factor. Different ethnic groups may have different amounts of weight gain when they immigrate to Canada. We will look at all these things in youth aged 10 and 15 years. They will be divided into groups based on when their families immigrated to Canada. The youth and their parents will fill out surveys on these risk factors and get their height and weight measured. The statistical method of structural equation modeling will be used to examine all these relationships. This project is important because it will create new information about the health of immigrant youth in Canada. In the future, this information will help make health policy decisions and programs for these youth.