Puerto Rican Americans

Puerto Rican Americans are people residing in the United States who emigrated from or who have ancestry from Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean which is a territory of the United States; therefore, those born in Puerto Rico are American citizens. The largest concentration of Puerto Rican Americans in the United States is in New York City and Florida, although people self-identifying as having Puerto Rican ancestry reside in all states in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2003, over 3.8 million Puerto Ricans lived in the United States. Puerto Rican Americans are the second largest Hispanic group in the United States, after Mexican Americans.

Information about obesity among Puerto Rican Americans must be gleaned from several sources—research focusing specifically on Puerto Rican Americans or on several Hispanic subgroups, research about Hispanic Americans in general, and research about Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico. Application of studies about Hispanics in general to Puerto Ricans in particular must be tempered by the knowledge that [Page 651]in the 2000 U.S. Census, the predominant Hispanic groups was Mexican American (58.5 percent of the total), with Puerto Rican Americans making up only 9.6 percent of the total).

For the purposes of collecting information on health and other population surveys, the Untied States government defines Hispanics or Latinos as persons of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, without regard to race. This adds a complication to interpreting information collected about Hispanics as a group, because race has been identified as a significant health risk factor in many studies. Most Puerto Ricans identify themselves as white, with about 8 percent self-identifying as black, and the remainder a combination of Asian, American Indian, or other races.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, Hispanics represented about 37.4 million people, about 13.3 percent of the total U.S. population. The Census Bureau projects that Hispanic Americans will total about 87.5 million by 2040, representing 22.3 percent of the U.S. population. Hispanics share some aspects of a common cultural heritage and social experience but also vary widely on characteristics such as racial background, time and conditions of immigration to the United States, degree of acculturation, rates of education and poverty, and many cultural factors such as food preferences, attitudes toward physical activity, and tolerance of and preference for particular body types.

Rates of obesity (defined as body mass index over 30) among U.S. adults (aged 18 and older), as calculated from self-reported height and weight on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS), have been increasing among all racial/ethnic groups since 1995. Hispanic rates of obesity are intermediate: lower than those of non-Hispanic white Americans, higher than those of non-Hispanic black Americans. In 1995, the BRFSS found that 16.8 percent of Hispanic adults were obese, versus 14.5 percent of non-Hispanic white Americans and 22.7 percent of non-Hispanic black Americans. In 2000, the rates were 23.4 percent for Hispanics, 18.5 percent for non-Hispanic whites, and 29.3 percent for non-Hispanic African Americans. In 2005, the rates were 26.5 percent for Hispanics, 22.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites, and 33.9 percent for non-Hispanic blacks. The 1999–2002 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), an ongoing nationally representative survey, found similar results for children and teenagers aged 2–19. The NHANES found that 37.3 percent of Hispanics in this age group, versus 34.7 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 43.4 percent of non-Hispanic blacks in this age group had ever been told by a doctor or health professional that they were overweight.

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