Closer Scrutiny of Culture Warranted in Latino Pediatric Obesity Research

In an editorial published today in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine of the Journal of the American Medical Association, UCSF Associate Professor of Pediatrics Elena Fuentes-Afflick, MD, MPH, says that researchers should more closely scrutinize the cultural origins of attitudes toward food, weight and body image when studying obesity in Latino children. "For Latino immigrants, who may have experienced hunger as children or witnessed the adverse effects of malnutrition, the ideal image of a healthy baby or child may be an 'overweight' image by current body mass standards." Fuentes-Afflick's editorial is written in response to an article published in this month's journal that finds that "Hispanic 3-year-olds have a higher prevalence of obesity than black or white 3-year-olds and that the disparity that does not seem to be explained by socioeconomic factors typically associated with obesity." The study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., in Princeton, NJ. Fuentes-Afflick is vice president of the Society for Pediatric Research and has conducted extensive research in obesity among Latino children. She practices at San Francisco General Hospital.