Healthy immigrants become less so over time

Couch potato lifestyles

Norma Greenaway

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

OTTAWA - Immigrants may land in Canada boasting better health than most native-born Canadians. But their physical well-being appears to deteriorate over time, especially among those who hailed from Africa, Asia and other non-European countries, a new Statistics Canada study says.

The report says the health of non-European immigrants eventually declines to a point where it approximates that of the general Canadian-born population.

The study's authors suggest possible causes of the shift include stresses associated with the process of immigrating, the natural ageing process and couch potato lifestyle choices.

Smoking was not deemed a significant factor because non-European immigrants were only half as likely as the Canadian-born population to start smoking on a daily basis, the authors wrote.

The study, based on an analysis of interviews with 14,100 adults who participated in the National Population Heath Survey between 1994-95 and 2002-03, is the first to look at immigrants' perception of their own health over the eight-year period.

The study also found non-European immigrants were almost twice as likely as the Canadian-born population to have experienced a substantial weight gain since 1994-95, meaning at least a 10% increase in their body mass index.

This group of immigrants also reported visiting a doctor more frequently than the others. Non-European immigrants were 1.5 times more likely than the Canadian-born population and European immigrants to become so-called frequent visitors to doctors, meaning they visited or consulted a doctor at last six times during the previous year.

"The process of immigration itself is stressful and disruptive, possibly involving financial constraints, employment problems or the lack of a social support network, all of which may undermine health," the report said.

© National Post 2005