By Max Rivlin-Nadler, Gawker
New research on the health of immigrants has found that they live longer than their children, mostly because the American way of life is a horribly unhealthy one.
The Times explains how the longer an immigrant lives in the United States, the higher their rate of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes (and no, it’s not because they’re getting older, dummy. It’s because they’re becoming more American!).
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“There’s something about life in the United States that is not conducive to good health across generations,” Robert A. Hummer, a social demographer at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Times.
On average, foreign-born Americans live three years longer than their American-born peers. Why? Because people born in the United States smoke more, drink more, eat worse, and kinda just laze about.
But there is some hope for the descendants of immigrants: social mobility! Scientists believe that the longer a family is in the United States, the more prosperous it might be, and once you get to that vaunted middle-class status, you stop buying huge hamburgers and instead start jogging.
Great! So we just need Americans to start moving up in class and, err, oh no, OK, maybe that won’t work right just now. How about we just start by moving? One step at a time.
There we go—let’s just go for a little walk around the block. Wasn’t that nice? We’re having an asthma attack? We’re wheezing? OK, right. I agree. This was silly. We’ll stop. This does feel like a perfect time for a nap.
This article was written by Max Rivlin-Nadler and published in Gawker on May 19, 2013. Photo by Fabiano Accorsi/Flickr.
- Tags: asthma, drinking, eating, gawker, jogging, new york times, smoking, university of texas
2 thoughts on “Moving To America Will Kill You”
HAHA! It made me giggle! Um… the writing style… not the subject… It’s very disturbing and makes me want to move.
Also, We should all start growing as much of our own food as possible, to avoid the pesticides in the fruits and veggies we buy. Start from seed instead of buying the plants in case they’re are sprayed too.
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