African Immigrant 's Beliefs And Lifestyle Behaviors That May Impact Health

With fresh eyes and modern research Leonard Dinnerstein provides a new prospective on immigration in America in his work, Natives and Strangers. This work is unique in the fact that it is a history of ethnic Americans, meaning that it looks at all groups of people not just those that immigrated during peak times. Dinnerstein gives a different perspective than those that wrote before him, he includes African Americans and Native Americans in his research. By telling the immigration story as a universal one shared by all Americans, whether they consider themselves natives or not, Dinnerstein provides a more in-depth and well-rounded book.

Juana Mora in “Acculturation Is Bad for Our Health: Eat More Nopalitos” argues that the United States offers many job and educational opportunities for Latinos, but acculturation in America negatively impacts their health. Mora offers research and statistics, most of which I find compelling, to explain that these illnesses are primarily due to the immigrants’ new “daily habits and environment changes” (Mora 660). After arriving in America, immigrants often live in crime-ridden, low income neighborhoods, rely on fast food, abuse alcohol and tobacco products, and have fewer safe areas for exercise. Additionally, the stress caused “by learning a new language and culture” and “living in new and sometimes dangerous environments” causes illnesses such as post-traumatic

The effects of the western diet are emphasized and seen through immigration. Many articles and studies have been done to show the effects of the westernized diet among immigrants. We often view immigrants as people coming to America seeking opportunity for themselves and their families to have better lives. While immigrants focus on providing for their family, one must wonder how often they think of the foods they and their families consume. In this section we will explore the effect of the western diet on different communities of immigrants. Batis, Bates, and Sanou, analyze the trends of obesity between Mexican immigrants and Americans, Latino & Asian Americans, and Canadian born vs. Canadian Immigrants.

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

Traditional African-American health beliefs consist of a holistic approach, where the body and mind is seen as being intertwined (Huff & Kline 2015). There is a constant battle within to maintain the balance. Prayer is their go to when it comes to dealing with illness or any problems that may encounter. Traditionally they are very spiritual and rely in prayer, rituals, magic and seek treatment from herbalist (Huff & Kline 2015). As for me, I do not believe in the ritual or magic but I am a strong believer in prayer and some of the natural treatments that are used for certain illness. One time I remember being very sick and I went to the doctor after two days, because it was the weekend. When I got there he told me I had strep and he asked what was I doing to treat it. I told him that I was gargling with warm salt water and vinegar. He told me to continue what I was doing and that it was working. I left his office without any other alternative treatment plan. From that day going forward whenever my throat would get a little sore I would gargle with warm salt water, vinegar, pepper or hot sauce.

One of the major areas for discrepancies in health outcomes with age exists across differing ethnic and racial groups. Trends in the research show that groups of individuals who belong to an ethnic or racial minority tend to have more negative health outcomes. Higher mortality and poorer morbidity for African Americans is consistently found compared to non-Hispanic white populations (Smedley et al., 2003). Moreover, mortality rates tend to be lower in foreign-born Hispanics and Asian immigrants to the United States compared to Americans born in the United States (Palloni & Arias, 2004; Hummer, Benjamins, & Rogers, 2004). This finding has been attributed partially to selective migration and return migration in older adulthood.

Their specific motivation, however, can be traced back to two significant gaps in the literature. According to their comprehensive review of the literature, Hamilton et al. found that the place of birth and the arrival cohort for Hispanic immigrants in the US have been largely neglected. "These migrants," they argue, "come from a diverse set of countries and have migrate to the United States under vastly different political, social and economic contexts, which could produce immense birth-country and arrival-cohort health variation among Hispanic immigrants, dimensions of health most previous studies ignore" (473). In addition to setting out to fill the aforementioned gaps, they also clearly present two major hypotheses that they intend on testing in their

In the book Proud Shoes, Pauli Murray writes about her family’s mixed race history and how the history of the United States with racism, specifically the south, affected her family’s history. She writes about the struggle with identity a lot of her family members faced. The book highlights how the time period and the history of the country that someone lives in has a great deal of impact on their lives. My family moved to the United States in 2002; a great time for immigrants because of the recent passing of the Immigration Act of 1990. The passage of this law created the Diversity Visa program, which is a lottery that allows immigrants into the United States from underrepresented countries.

Chapter 9: “Middle Eastern and North African Americans” gave me a different prospective from the negatively outlook portrait by the media in America. I realize that this group is far more that what we hear around. Immigrants from this region of the world are people who are simply looking for a better life, just like any other immigrant group that is migrating to America. Despite their hardship suffer from wars in their native countries that are usually cause by their indifferences in religion and sometimes by dysfunctional governments that don’t care for the wellbeing of the people. I found very interesting to know that most of the individuals from this groups come to the United States a lot more prepared in terms of education than other groups. Although,

As a result of the pervasive power of racism, African Americans and Latino’s consume a high fat and nutritionally low diet, which contributes to their declining health by increasing their a susceptibility to disease. According the American Heart Association (2013), African Americans have a greater chance of contracting heart disease and a 15% higher mortality rate as opposed to their white counterparts, illustrating not only the high prevalence of disease in minorities, but the alarming health disparities plaguing the United States health system. Although, more amicable/civil to blame proximate risk facts of the individual such as their individual diet and exercise habits, it blindly ignores the systemic oppression of residential segregation. Health disparities stem from various factors including a poor nutritional diet; however, all come back to one inescapable conclusion that the oppression of African Americans and Latinos due to residential segregation and institutionalized racism is directly responsible for the influx in chronic disease. The aggregation of minorities into low income communities leading to limited access to fruits and vegetables, paired with the financial burden of healthy eating trap these minorities in a pervasive, toxic cycle, which begs the question: how does residential segregation and institutional racism shape African Americans and Latino’s diet? and What are the consequences of a high fat, nutritionally low diet?

From the time when the European crisis started, the migration to the Americas has increased. Among all the countries in the American continent, United States is the one that has received more immigrants since the sixteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. Since then, the most of immigrants are Latin especially from Mexico. In 2013, around 41.3 million immigrants lived in the United States. They represent 13 % of the total 316 million U.S. residents. If added the U.S.-born children of immigrants they increase to around 80 million people (Migration Information Source). Thus, it is how started and continued the immigration in the U.S.

The decline in immigrant health status over time can be attributed to the acculturation process (Singh & Siahpush, 2001; Akresh, 2007)This hypothesis implies that culture that initially induces better health outcomes and lower mortality rates among immigrants begins to erode as immigrants acculturate and adapt to the negative health behaviors and lifestyles within the host society (Akresh, 2007; Angel, Buckley, & Sakamoto, 2001).In addition, the literature stresses other factors, such as: lack of access to the health care system (Abraído-Lanza, Chao, & Flórez, 2005), stress associated with migration (Newbold & Danforth, 2003; Biddle, Kennedy, & McDonald, 2007; Dean & Wilson, 2010), exposure to racism and anti-immigrant discrimination as well

The foundation of the United States was built on migration. Every year new immigrants are coming into the country. Grieco et al. (2010) stated that in 2012 there were 11.7 million immigrants from Mexico living in America. Diabetes among Mexican immigrants have been increasing over the years, and now have the highest risk of getting diabetes (Barcellos, Goldman, & Smith, 2012; O’Brien, Alos, Davey, Bueno, & Whitaker, 2014). In regards to this, one hypothesis for the escalation is that later generations of Mexican immigrants, specifically the second and third generations, due to the exposure and overstressed relationship with assimilating to a new culture (Afable-Munsuz, Mayeda, Pérez-Stable, & Haan, 2013). It was studied by Afable-Munsuz

Hispanics Americans (Mexicans, Puerto Rican, Cubans and people from Central and South America) are the largest racial and ethnic minority group in the United States. Similar, to other ethnic groups in the country, Latinos are disproportionately affected by multiple social determinants, such as poor living conditions, cultural values, socioeconomic and immigration status to mention a few. Consequently, they exert negatively in the health status of individuals among this unique population(Velasco-Mondragon, Jimenez, Palladino-Davis, Davis, & Escamilla-Cejudo, 2016).

A healthy lifestyle is measured by diet, exercise and sleep. Nigeria is one of the most populated country in Africa. Nigeria has a population of over 180 million citizens in which majority of the populations are lower class. The perception of Nigerians on the aspect of eating healthy encompasses many factors such as, socio-economic aspect and cultural aspect. In Nigeria, eating healthy can be difficult to achieve because of unavailability of resources to purchase healthy fruits and food. Just like in the USA, healthy fruits and vegetables are more expensive than buying unhealthy food such as fast foods and carbohydrates. Eating right can help prevent weight gains, and health issues such as obesity, hypertension etc. This research paper will detail some of the unhealthy living within the Nigerian population and how many factors determines the perception of healthy diet.