This means that, when calculating total poverty, different distances must be captured for moderate and severe deprivation. This was done by assigning a score of 1 for severe deprivation, 2 for moderate deprivation and 3 for no deprivation (the value 0 was reserved for the situation of extreme deprivation, which is not amenable to measurement by conventional surveys). Flowever, the distances represented by these scores are metric, whereas the three situations (severe, moderate and no deprivation) relate to an ordinal system (where the actual distances cannot be established). So, even though it is possible to differentiate between groups of poor children using depth and severity indices of total poverty, they should be considered merely illustrative of the severity of poverty in these groups.