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Arm girth a better indicator of malnutrition than weight

Arm girth a better indicator of malnutrition than weight
Children need to be fed well in order to have positive health outcomes. © Shutterstock

Written by Agencies |Published : May 27, 2015 6:41 PM IST

Measuring the circumference of the arm of children can lead to better diagnosis of malnutrition than weight-based measurements, says a study.
Using a measuring tape to measure arm circumference is the most reliable factor in diagnosing malnutrition, said Adam Levine, emergency medicine physician at the Rhode Island Hospital in the US.

Measuring tapes are inexpensive and readily available in resource-limited environments. The traditional measure for determining whether a child is moderately or severely malnourished is based on evaluating the child's weight directly.

'Dehydration lowers a child's weight, using weight-based assessments in children introduced with diarrhoea may be misleading,' Levine said. 'When children are rehydrated and returned to a stable, pre-illness weight, they may still suffer from acute malnutrition.' (Read: Tips to manage diarrhoea in children)

About half a million children die annually from severe malnutrition and nearly 100 million children are underweight, mostly in the world's poorest countries. Diarrhoea is common among children who visit health facilities in developing nations. Levine and his team studied the clients of an urban hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Read: Over 3 lakh children in India die annually due to diarrhoea)

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They analysed 721 records of all children under 60 months of age who visited the hospital's rehydration unit with acute diarrhoea. They found that 12-14 percent of children were misclassified with malnutrition using weight-based measures compared to only one-two percent who were measured by arm circumference. (Read: Are our policies to fight child malnutrition deeply flawed )

The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition.

Image source: Getty Images


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