Childhood 'dying in spend, spend Britain'
 

By Sarah Womack,

The Telegraph, December 12, 2006
 

Childhood is under threat from a deluge of marketing and advertising aimed at the young, according to a new report endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The impact of the consumer society is now so deep that seven out of 10 three-year-olds recognise the McDonald's logo but only half know their own surname, said Compass, a Left-of-centre think-tank.

Children were "engulfed" by images – sometimes of a sexually suggestive nature – of how they should look and what they should own.

Parents were subverted by the barrage, which "exploited children's emotional vulnerabilities in the name of profit".

The average 10-year-old had "internalised 300 to 400 brands – perhaps 20 times the number of birds in the wild that they could name" and British children are among the most materialistic in the world, ahead of even the Americans, it said.

The report, Commercialisation of Childhood, comes amid a national inquiry by the Children's Society into childhood conducted by the Government's unofficial "happiness tsar" Lord Layard. It reports next year.

Leading figures including Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and patron of the national inquiry, are concerned that rampant marketing is behind rising levels of stress, depression and low self-esteem in children. He said the Compass document was timely and pertinent.

"There is an increasing political and social consensus that something needs to be done to safeguard children from the worst excesses of direct marketing and the pressures of commercialisation," he said. Compass drew on research from a variety of sources to warn that the style and ubiquity of marketing to children is having a huge and potentially damaging influence.

Female singers "dress like quintessential male fantasies of teenybopper hookers and sing songs about sex written by middle-aged men", and are marketed to children, it quotes Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids, as saying.

The report includes examples of dolls' sets – the Bratz Secret Date Collection – containing champagne glasses and "tons of date night accessories". Vivid Imaginations, distributors of Bratz dolls in the UK, said the brand was marketed at 12-year-olds, although younger girls aspired to own them. A million were sold in Britain last year and Forever Diamondz dolls, with their faux furs and sparkly decorated spray-on jeans, are said to be this Christmas's "must have" for girls. You can't stop younger girls buying them as you can't stop them watching pop videos," said a spokeswoman.

She said the champagne glasses were "just glasses that could have squash in them to a child. Only adults would recognise them as champagne glasses."

One American commentator has said Bratz dolls appear sexual – "like pole dancers on their way to a gentlemen's club". But the spokeswoman said: "A consumer psychologist at Exeter University has said that's an adult's perspective. To a girl, it's a pretty doll and they are buying into fashion dolls. Adults are over intellectualising."

Sue Palmer, a former head teacher and author of Toxic Childhood, said children's clothing was being designed in overtly adult styles to expose a lot of flesh.

Today's report says the bombardment of children with messages of what is cool pits children against each other and their parents.

Wal-mart, for example, has taken the concept of Santa's list to a new level. On its website, Toyland, it asks children to pick items they would like from a conveyor belt and to enter their parents' email addresses so the list can be sent on and the company can "help pester your parents".

A Wal-mart spokesman said: "Kids have been writing lists for Christmas presents for hundreds of years. All we've done is put a modern slant on the tradition."

The Compass report concludes: "Millions of pounds are spent conditioning children to become young consumers. Who is forming our children – parents, guardians, friends, families, teachers, community workers – or an army of psychologists, branding gurus, marketing experts, advertisers who are spending billions to shape young minds in the name of profit. Can children be children before they are consumers?"