Why we eat burgers in US
By Techgirl

Among the tens of thousands of Indians who migrate to USA every year, the largest group is of techies. New research is showing that many of the Indian children who accompany their techie parents to America put on a little weight because they are ‘challenged about their status as Americans’, which forces them to eat more burgers and junk food.  The research highlights are

“
-  “Do you speak English?” scientists asked half of the participants, who were Asian-American and white college students, in order to make them feel self-conscious about their status as Americans. (This question provokes what psychologists call “ stereotype threat.”) They then asked them all to write down their favorite food. Asian-Americans who’d been asked if they spoke English were three times as likely to write down American foods like hamburgers or pizza as those who hadn’t been. White students wrote down the same kinds of foods either way.
- But did people actually change their eating habits to seem more American? To test this, in separate experiment researchers told Asian-American students to order whatever they liked from local Asian and American restaurants. But they dropped a bomb on some: “Actually, you have to be an American to be in this study.”
-The subjects who had their American identities threatened indeed ordered and ate dishes that were more classically American—hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, BLTs, mac and cheese—than those who hadn’t. (And in case you were wondering, the researchers had a separate group of Asian Americans and white people classify how “American” or “Asian” certain foods are—so when they say hamburgers are American, there’s real science behind it.)
-When researchers tallied up the calories each group ate, Asian-Americans who’d been threatened had eaten a whopping 182 calories, 12 grams of fat, and 7 grams of saturated fat more than those who hadn’t been threatened.
-This lends credence to the idea that anxiety about fitting in leads immigrants and their children to eat more calories and thus, unfortunately, develop the same health problems as the rest of the American population.
“

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.  Techgirl has been ejected from Twitter for satirizing an Indian Minister.  Her satire blog has links to her Times of India interview detailing her being kicked out of Twitter, and then being invited back.