Recent studies on immigrants' health shed light on the importance of selection and acculturation
processes, but also point out differences according to the country of origin.We study how differences
in overweight between natives and immigrants can vary according to birthplace, country of arrival,
acculturation, and socioeconomic status. Based on national health interview surveys in Spain and
France, we use probit estimations and a Blinder-Oaxaca type of decomposition adequate for binary
data model to distinguish the part of the overweight difference that is explained by individual
characteristics from the part explained by differences in coefficients. Our results show a ‘healthy
immigrant effect' for men in Spain but a higher likelihood of being overweight among women
immigrants regardless of the country of arrival. Our results suggest that birthplace and acculturation
as measured by citizenship status are the main explanation for these effects. Our decomposition
results reveal that the difference of overweight prevalence between women natives and immigrants
ismainly explained by differences in coefficients indicating a specific pattern of immigrant overweight.