Mid-Upper Arm Circumference: An Alternative to BMI for Screening Overweight and Obesity Among the Khiamniungan Tribal Children and Adolescents of Nagaland, Northeast India

Abstract

Background: Body mass index (BMI) is recommended globally as the optimal, straight forward measure of obesity. Nonetheless, in a resource-poor setting, Mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC) is considered as a key indicator for overweight and obesity. Objective: The present study is an attempt to determine the accuracy of MUAC for the assessment of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents of Khiamniungan tribe. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study which includes 960 Khiamniungan tribal children and adolescents of both sexes aged 5-16 years. All the somatometric measurements were assessed objectively. Result: MUAC was found to be strongly correlated with height, weight, waist circumference and body mass index in both children (r≥0.617; p<0.001) and adolescents (r≥0.74, p<0.001). The MUAC cut-off to identify BMI-defined overweight/obesity among children 16.50 cm and adolescent’s 21.50 cm. AUC results were ‘fair’ for children and ‘excellent’ for adolescents (0.75 and 0.95, respectively). Conclusion: MUAC can be preferred over conventional BMI as an alternative screening tool in a resource-poor setting as it is simple, inexpensive, easy to use, and non-invasive method.

Keywords

• children
• adolescents
• overweight
• obesity
• mid-upper arm circumference