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Mid Upper Arm Circumference as an alternative measure to assess the nutritional Status of Adolescents: A study based on NFHS-4 in India

Aparna Roy, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
T. V. Sekher, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Use of Body Mass Index (BMI) to assess the nutritional status of adolescents require large resources. This study tries to determine the relationship between BMI and Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) for adolescent males and females in India and to examine whether MUAC effectively represents the nutritional status of adolescents. The weighted sample in the analysis includes 91315 female and 14893 male adolescents. BMI and MUAC measurements showed a positive correlation in female and male adolescents. As per BMI-for-age Z-score classifications, 12.7% adolescents were undernourished. MUAC (cm) as per NACS (Nutrition Assessment, Counselling, and Support) and Mramba et al (2017) classify 22.9% and 3.7% as undernourished respectively. As per the MUAC-for-age Z-score classification, 98.4% were normal, and 1.7% were undernourished. Sensitivity and specificity tests of MUAC cut-offs in comparison to BMI cut-offs showed that all three classifications of MUAC cut-offs had high specificity. NACS cut-off had moderately high sensitivity (52.2%) but Mramba cut-offs had low sensitivity (13.3% for the centimetre cut-off and 6.6% for the Z-score cutoff). The tests show that MUAC does represent the adolescent nutritional status with considerable efficiency. With further research, it may be established that MUAC is a better and promising measure of adolescent nutrition.

Keywords: Children and youth, Comparative methods, Applied demography, Health and morbidity

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P10.