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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition Methodology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1506576
This article is part of the Research Topic Nutritional Indicators and Implications for Human Health View all 11 articles

Mid-Upper-Arm Circumference: a Surrogate Measure for BMI for age z-score to identify thinness among Adolescent Girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Provisionally accepted
Gudina Egata Gudina Egata *Solome Zebene Solome Zebene Demewoz Haile Demewoz Haile
  • College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: The mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is an anthropometric screening tool for the assessment of nutritional status of individuals which is a feasible option in low-resource settings. However, the potential for MUAC to be used as a screening tool for identifying thinness among adolescents is not well understood. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of MUAC in identifying thinness of all forms among adolescent girls enrolled in selected schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods and Materials: A representative sample comprising of 913 female adolescent students was selected using stratified sampling technique in a cross sectional study. Socio-demographic data were collected using interviewer administered questionnaires. Anthropometric data such as height, weight and MUAC were collected using portable stadiometer; a battery powered digital scale and a non-stretchable MUAC tape respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to assess the relationship of MUAC, age and Body Mass Index for age (BAZ). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine how well MUAC can classify those with or without thinness. The Youden’s index was used to determine the optimal threshold for adolescents aged 10-14 years. Results: There was a strong significant positive correlation (r=0.80) between MUAC and BAZ. MUAC correctly detected thinness and severe thinness with good accuracy (AUC = 0.86). Based on the highest corresponding Youden's index, the MUAC cut-offs of 20.1cm and 19.7cm were chosen separately to detect thinness and severe thinness. MUAC measurement was found to have 92.1% sensitivity and 67.3% specificity and 95.9% sensitivity and 68.5% specificity to identify moderate thinness and severe thinness among adolescent girls respectively. Conclusion: MUAC showed good accuracy in predicting thinness and severe thinness with a comparable level of sensitivity and a lower specificity compared with BAZ. Thus, introducing MUAC as a criterion for identifying thinness and severe thinness among female adolescents could be beneficial in resource-limited settings like Ethiopia.

    Keywords: Mid-Upper Arm Circumference, Body mass index for age Z-score, Thinness, Adolescent, Ethiopia

    Received: 05 Oct 2024; Accepted: 03 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Egata, Zebene and Haile. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Gudina Egata, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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