Kids'R'Profits

Most adults in the UK believe that children's well-being is being damaged because childhood has become too commercial, a lifestyle poll has found. The children's market is worth an estimated £30 billion a year.

The Children's Society said adults had to "take responsibility for the current level of marketing to children...To accuse children of being materialistic in such a culture is a cop-out," said the chief executive of the society. "Unless we question our own behaviour as a society we risk creating a generation who are left unfulfilled through chasing unattainable lifestyles."

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is patron of the inquiry, said: "Children should be encouraged to value themselves for who they are as people rather than what they own. The selling of lifestyles to children creates a culture of material competitiveness and promotes acquisitive individualism at the expense of the principles of community and co-operation." [ The capitalist press certainly aren't making this remark by the Archbishop front page headline news as they did with his Sharia law comment , are they ?]

One member of the childhood inquiry panel has warned that the commercial pressures on youngsters may have damaging psychological effects. Professor Philip Graham, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Institute of Child Health in London, said:
"One factor that may be leading to rising mental health problems is the increasing degree to which children and young people are preoccupied with possessions; the latest in fashionable clothes and electronic equipment. Evidence both from from the United States and from the UK suggests that those most influenced by commercial pressures also show higher rates of mental health problems," .

The Good Childhood report found:
"Advertising to children was ruthless and exploitative and they should not be viewed as small consumers, particularly for younger children with impressionable minds."