Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Department of Family Medicine and Population Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Pediatr Obes. 2024 May;19(5):e13107. doi: 10.1111/ijpo.13107. Epub 2024 Feb 6.
Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) was recommended for screening of adolescents with obesity, although its diagnostic performance with respect to high-precision assessment of body composition remains unknown.
To evaluate the diagnostic performance of MUAC in identifying obesity and metabolic syndrome in U.S. adolescents.
A cross-sectional study was conducted using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data (2011-2018) of adolescents aged 12-19. We calculated the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and likelihood ratios of MUAC in identifying obesity and metabolic syndrome.
In our study, data of 5496 adolescents, including 2665 females, were analysed. The prevalence of obesity was higher in boys (14%) than girls (10%), whilst metabolic syndrome was more common in males (2.6%) than females (1.7%). The area under the curve (AUC) of MUAC in identifying obesity was 0.69 in boys and 0.86 in girls, whilst the AUC of MUAC in identifying metabolic syndrome was 0.91 in boys and 0.87 in girls. The optimal MUAC cut-off for identifying adolescents with obesity was 28.3 cm in boys (sensitivity: 64.8%, specificity: 85.5%) and 30.8 cm in girls (sensitivity: 67.9%, specificity: 90.1%).
MUAC was a good indicator of both obesity and metabolic syndrome, with higher accuracy in girls.
中上臂围（MUAC）曾被推荐用于筛查肥胖青少年，但其在高精度评估身体成分方面的诊断性能仍不清楚。
评估 MUAC 在识别美国青少年肥胖和代谢综合征方面的诊断性能。
本研究采用了美国国家健康和营养调查（NHANES）（2011-2018 年）12-19 岁青少年的横断面研究数据。我们计算了 MUAC 识别肥胖和代谢综合征的受试者工作特征曲线下面积、敏感度、特异度、阳性和阴性预测值和似然比。
在我们的研究中，分析了 5496 名青少年的数据，包括 2665 名女性。肥胖的患病率在男孩（14%）中高于女孩（10%），而代谢综合征在男性（2.6%）中比女性（1.7%）更常见。MUAC 识别肥胖的曲线下面积（AUC）在男孩中为 0.69，在女孩中为 0.86，而 MUAC 识别代谢综合征的 AUC 在男孩中为 0.91，在女孩中为 0.87。用于识别肥胖青少年的最佳 MUAC 截断值为男孩 28.3cm（敏感度：64.8%，特异性：85.5%），女孩 30.8cm（敏感度：67.9%，特异性：90.1%）。
MUAC 是肥胖和代谢综合征的良好指标，在女孩中准确性更高。
