There is a flip side to the American dream, medical researchers have discovered. Moving to the United States can make you fat.
A study of immigrants' health shows that people born abroad are rarely obese until they have lived in America for 10 years or more, and succumbed to its car-driving, burger-guzzling culture.
Only eight per cent of immigrants who had lived in the country for less than a year were obese, but that jumped to 19 per cent after 15 years. The figure compared with 22 per cent of American-born residents surveyed.
"The longer you live here, the more likely you are to be obese," USA Today was told by Dr Mita Sanghavi Goel, of Northwest University, Illinois, who led the study.
The research, published in yesterday's Journal of the American Medical Association, found a link between obesity and US residency in white, Hispanic and Asian immigrant groups.
It was not seen in foreign-born blacks but numbers in the study were too small to draw conclusions. More than 32,000 adults were surveyed.
Government statistics show that roughly two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. More than 127 million adults are classified as overweight and 70 million obese.
Changes in immigrants' diet and way of life are behind the weight gain, the research suggests, as they consume more fat and sugar in processed foods, less fruit and vegetables and adopt a more sedentary existence.