U.S. Migration, Translocality, and the Acceleration of the Nutrition Transition in Mexico

Abstract

Migrant flows are generally accompanied by extensive social, economic, and cultural links between origins and destinations, transforming the former's community life, livelihoods, and local practices. Previous studies have found a positive association between these translocal ties and better child health and nutrition. We contend that focusing on children only provides a partial view of a larger process affecting community health, accelerating the nutrition transition in particular. We use a Mexican nationally-representative survey with socioeconomic, anthropometric, and biomarker measures, matched to municipal-level migration intensity and marginalization measures from the Mexican 2000 Census to study the association between adult body mass and community migration intensity. Our findings from multi-level models suggest a significant and positive relationship between community-level migration intensity and the individual risk of being overweight and obese, with significant differences by gender and with remittance intensity playing a preponderant role.