Mexican Women Found to Eat Better, Have Better Health

SAN FRANCISCO — Women in the United States would do well to learn from the diets of recent Mexican immigrants, according to a University of California study.

Women immigrants born in Mexico eat more meats, vegetables and beans and use less nicotine, alcohol and coffee--and it shows up in better health for themselves and their babies, researchers found.

Sixteen percent of non-Hispanic white women smoke heavily during pregnancy--compared with only 1% of immigrants born in Mexico. And fat intake is well below U.S. levels.

“They use the traditional diet, food that is more balanced, more protein and vitamins, rather than the empty calories and high fat,” said Sylvia Guendelman, a UC Berkeley professor. Her study was published Jan. 26 in the American Journal of Public Health.

The first-generation Mexicans ate diets richer in protein, zinc, folic acid and calcium and lower in fat, the study found. The authors cautioned that their findings did not apply to Mexican restaurant food, which is often criticized as high in fat.

Despite conditions of often extreme poverty, babies born to recent Mexican immigrants are approximately as healthy as non-Hispanic whites, while black babies have 2 1/2 times more complications.

But there is bad news. As the immigrants’ incomes increase and they become more Americanized, their diet rapidly deteriorates and health problems quickly increase.

“Acculturation does not always mean better health habits and better health--in many ways it might put women at risk,” Guendelman said.

Mexican women in the United States soon give up tortillas for bread, and they pick up smoking and alcohol consumption.

And, contrary to findings with white non-Hispanic women, more money doesn’t mean better food for Mexican immigrants.

“For first-generation Mexican Americans, food choices deteriorated as income increased, perhaps because women adhered less to a traditional Mexican diet,” said the study, which was co-authored by Barbara Abrams, a nutrition expert at the University of California, Berkeley.

Previous studies have shown that their cancer risk increases as the diet changes, and Guendelman said the dietary change affects childbearing as well.

“You begin to see more pregnancy complications and more risk for pre-term births,” she said.

That view was backed by nutritionists who work with Mexican-Americans and say health problems increase quickly as diets change.

“Even when they’ve been here for a short time, there is a change in their weight,” said public health nutritionist Martha Dominguez at St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco. “They do increase--it’s a lot of that fast food.”

The lesson for both immigrants and longtime residents is clear, Guendelman said.

“We’ve got to reinforce these healthy habits and healthy diets among Mexican immigrants--as well as try to use that as lessons other women can learn for themselves,” she said.

The study involved 3,600 women who participated in two dietary studies performed by the National Center for Health Statistics in the late 1970s and 1980s. They were asked what they had eaten in the previous 24 hours.