Can MUAC Be Used to Determine the Nutritional Status of Adolescent Girls?

Body mass index is a measure used to assess whether a person is underweight or overweight. However, BMI does not take into account muscle mass and fat mass, making it less accurate for determining nutritional status values in this condition. The purpose of this study was to determine whether upper arm circumference has a correlation with BMI and to determine the threshold value for detecting undernutrition in adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 years. This study used a cross-sectional design involving 380 healthy adolescent girls. Anthropometric measurement procedures are implemented under strict supervision after obtaining consent from respondents. There is a strong correlation (r = 0.841) where the effect of MUAC variables on BMI variables was 70.7% (R square =0.707, p = 0.000), AUC of 0.899 (95% CI: 0.86 - 0.92) for MUAC on BMI, sensitivity = 0.896, specificity = 0.711, PPV = 0.869, and NPV = 0.761. The cutoff value was 23.7 cm and the Youden Index was 0.647, with a good accuracy value of 83.68%. MUAC has good accuracy and is supported by a strong correlation to detect nutritional status in adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 years, where the resulting sensitivity and specificity are high. This study also produced a cutoff value that was not much different, namely 23.7. Based on these results, MUAC can be recommended for early assessment in the detection of malnutrition in adolescent girls. The drawback of this study is the relatively small sample size.