Undernutrition is a very significant public health concern in many developing countries. Undernutrition in children under five years of age is one of the most serious health problems in developing countries including India. The conventional anthropometric measures of height-for-age (stunting), weight-for-age (underweight) and weight-for-height (wasting) are used to assess the undernutrition status, but these measures understate the actual magnitude of undernutrition because of overlapping in nature in population. Several researchers have further suggested that conventional anthropometric indices could not provide the overall prevalence of undernutrition as the researcher had to ‘choose’ a certain category of anthropometric failure when assessing nutritional status. The composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF) is a proposed alternate anthropometric measure to assess the magnitude of undernutrition in children. The CIAF comprises typical anthropometric indicators and their combination (i.e., an aggregate index) into seven categories and proposes an additional measure to study undernutrition as an alternative to the evaluation of stunting, wasting and underweight as the separate measure. Therefore, this could be a potential tool to health planners and policymakers – considering the CIAF to assess the actual burden of undernutrition in the most vulnerable segment of the population. Hence, it is imperative to assess the magnitude of undernutrition to implement intervention programme for reducing the actual burden on the population. The objectives of the present review paper are to evaluate and compare the present situation of undernutrition reported using both conventional anthropometric measures and CIAF among Indian children (<5 years). The present review paper has also emphasized the potential advantages of CIAF over the used conventional anthropometric measures because it determines comprehensive anthropometric failure in a very magnificent way. The disaggregation of CIAF categories provides more accurate identification of nutritional risks in both double or multiple anthropometric failures and actual magnitude of undernutrition than used conventional anthropometric measures among Indian children (<5 years). Therefore, this proposed alternative anthropometric measure (i.e., CIAF) will be helpful to identify actual vulnerable segments or at-risk children and also to plan target specific appropriate nutritional intervention policies and/or need-based aid in ongoing intervention programmes to reduce the actual burden of malnutrition in population.