ArticlePloS one2020
Performance of mid-upper arm circumference as a screening tool for identifying adolescents with overweight and obesity.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Burden of overweight and obesity among adolescents in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International health · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The performance of mid-upper arm circumference for identifying children and adolescents with overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Public health nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Clinical Assessment of Obesity Beyond Body Mass Index: Adiposity Evaluation, Body-Composition Phenotyping and Disease Staging: A Narrative Review.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Mid-upper arm circumference and diabetes/prediabetes in children and adolescents: A cross-sectional study using NHANES data.Medicine · 2026Article
- Climate-induced shifts in habitat suitability of forest types and adaptation strategies in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Validation of mid-upper arm circumference against to body mass index-for-age for assessing nutritional status among school adolescents in Ethiopia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Acceptability and Feasibility of Health Measures in Preteens: Findings From the ROLO Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2025Article
- Diagnostic performance of anthropometric measurements for identifying obesity in high-altitude pediatric populations: evidence from tibet via bioelectrical impedance analysis.Lipids in health and disease · 2025Article
- Factors influencing malnutrition among adolescent girls in The Gambia: a mixed-methods exploratory study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Exploring the role of nutritional status and anthropometric factors in anemia among adolescent girls in Pekanbaru, Indonesia.SAGE open medicine · 2025Article
- Population Nutritional Status in Addis Health and Demographic Surveillance System (ADDIS-HDSS), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Ethiopian journal of health sciences · 2024Article
- The Association between Mid-Upper Arm Circumference and Blood Pressure in an Italian Population of School-Aged Children and Adolescents with Lipid Disorders.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Establishment of prediction equations for subcutaneous tissue thickness in two representative intramuscular deltoid injections.Vaccine: X · 2023Article
- Development and validation of a model to predict the risk of hypertension using anthropometric indicators in the Chinese population: a retrospective cohort study.American journal of translational research · 2023Article
- Article
- Anemia among Adolescent Girls in West Java, Indonesia: Related Factors and Consequences on the Quality of Life.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Article
- Large mid-upper arm circumference is associated with reduced insulin resistance independent of BMI and waist circumference: A cross-sectional study in the Chinese population.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAdolescent overweight and obesity is a global public health problem, associated with an increased risk of metabolic syndrome. Recently, mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) has been suggested as a screening tool to identify overweight and obesity among school-age children and early adolescents (5-14 years). However, little is known about the potential use of MUAC in the late adolescence period (15-19 years). Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the performance of MUAC to identify overweight (including obesity) in the late adolescence period in Ethiopia.
methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study among 851 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years. We collected anthropometric data including MUAC, weight and height with the help of trained field workers. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to examine the validity of MUAC compared to BMI Z score in identifying adolescents with overweight or obesity. Furthermore, we calculated the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), proportion of correctly classified, positive, and negative likelihood ratio for the proposed optimal cut-offs.
resultsMUAC was strongly correlated with BMI Z score with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.81 (95% CI; 0.79-0.84). The optimal MUAC cut-off for identifying adolescents with overweight or obesity was 27.7 cm for males and 27.9 cm for females. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.96 (95% CI; 0.93-0.98) for males and 0.96 (95% CI; 0.94-0.98) for females. The accuracy level of MUAC to identify adolescents with overweight (including obesity) was high for both sexes (overall a sensitivity of 91.1% and a specificity of 90.3%).
conclusionsMUAC has relatively equivalent accuracy with BMI Z score to identify overweight and obesity in adolescents. Hence, MUAC could be used as an alternative tool for surveillance and screening of overweight in adolescents aged 15-19 years.
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