Malnutrition is a leading cause of child mortality in India. To counteract this problem, a nutrition supplementation programme has been operating under the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) scheme in India since 1975. Recently, the Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF) has been implemented to measure the seriousness and severity of overall under-nutrition in a population. Since this index presents a more complete picture than the previous three conventional measures. CIAF is utililized in this study which focuses on the overall burden of under-nutrition determination in pre-school children in Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, India. Our study was conducted in 10 Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) centres, commonly known as "Anganwadi", in the villages of the Argoal Gram Panchayat at Patashpur -II block. The total sample of 225 Bengalee ethnic children aged between 3 and 6 years was composed of 115 girls and 110 boys. The overall age and gender-combined prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting recorded was 30.7%, 42.7% and 12.0%, respectively, and these rates were considered high (30-39%), very high (≥ 40%) and high (10-14%), respectively. CIAF results revealed the same trend, with 50.2% of these children affected by anthropometric failure, with the prevalence of underweight, wasting and CIAF higher in boys than in girls. This 50.2% CIAF result highlighted that approximately half the study children were undernourished. Since this figure is much higher than that estimated by any of the three conventional indicators,, CIAF has thus proven a far better indicator in assessing the overall burden of under-nutrition in a population. The nutritional status of the children in this study requires serious remedial action.

The results of the present study clearly indicates that the nutritional status of these children is of concern.

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Introduction:The three conventional indices were insufficient to measure overall prevalence of child undernutrition and hence it was proposed to construct a Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF).Objectives: To evaluate the overall burden of undernutrition using CIAF in primary school children of a rural area in West Bengal, India. Method:A cross sectional study was carried out among 618 children (304 boys and 314 girls) from Government aided primary schools of Bali Gram

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