Exploiting Childhood: How Fast Food, Material Obsession and Porn Culture are Creating New Forms of Child Abuse

226 Pages·2013·0.922 MB·English

by  Jim Wild (ed.)

‘Keenly researched and powerfully argued, this is a clarion call for the
protection of children against insidious forms of harm. A courageous and
hugely important book.’
– Jay Griffiths, author of Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape
‘The nightmarish vision of this book is that parents have less and less
ability to influence their children as the advertising and multimedia
corporations colonise their minds. Children’s bodies and brains are being
steered towards future disease from junk food, they are desensitised
to violence and prematurely sexualised, whilst their imaginations and
empathy wither away from lack of creative play and interaction. It is
a scary story and it left me genuinely wondering whether our current
culture is itself abusing children.’
– Sue Gerhardt, psychotherapist and author of The Selfish Society
‘When adults poison children, groom them for sex or expose them to
extreme violence, we call it abuse. In this provocative and often shocking
book, child protection expert Jim Wild rallies a wide range of expert
evidence to show how “abuse” of this kind is rapidly becoming normalised
across society – in the name of economic growth. As unregulated corporate
greed threatens the physical and mental health of an entire generation,
Exploiting Childhood is a book none of us can afford to ignore.’
– Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood
‘This vital book unpicks one of the tragedies of our time: the destruction of
childhood by materialism, must-have selfishness and neoliberal ideology.
From “make me a model parties” for six year old girls, complete with
manicurists, hair dressers and a bespoke catwalk, to children watching
18,000 ads a year on their bedroom tellies, the picture to emerge is both
grim and compelling. No wonder one child sex offender could so coldly
observe “the culture did a lot of the grooming for me”.
But this book also gives enormous hope. People – young and old – are
resisting, rebelling and retelling their own stories. The chapter on critical
thinking and the “hunt for assumptions” is beautifully pitched. We meet
the inner city writing group Still Waters in a Storm which is an oasis that
allows kids to regroup and rethink. And though we are reminded that the
road to change is not easy, we also learn that we can have fun along the
way – whether it is in the knowing lyrics of the rap scene or the wisdom
of Shakespeare re-expressed in New York street argot.’
– Professor Gerard Hastings, Director of the Institute
for Social Marketing and the Centre for Tobacco Control
Research, Stirling and the Open University
‘This well-evidenced and argued book exposes the pervasive and
shocking forms of commercial exploitation and abuse of children by
large corporations. Jim Wild and the expert chapter authors challenge
us to face up to the misery and exploitation caused to parents, children
and young people by these companies. The book makes a persuasive case
for ensuring that children are protected from all forms of abuse, beyond
those that our child protection systems currently recognise.’
– Brian Littlechild, Professor of Social Work, University of Hertfordshire, UK
‘This important book recognises that child protection policy and practice
has a very restricted view of what causes harm to children, and that we
need to take seriously the growing evidence about the negative impact of
commercial and corporate exploitation on children’s well-being.’
– Nigel Parton, Professor of Applied Childhood
Studies, University of Huddersfield
‘Child protection is everyone’s business – or at least it should be! This
provocative book asks whether it is time to broaden the definition of
“significant harm” because of the nature of the society we live in, the
way we do business and the implications this has for our children. It
focuses on many areas not traditionally seen as the core business of child
protection professionals and challenges us to consider how our modern
society impacts on children and their right to a safe childhood. Parents,
professionals and politicians have a responsibility to understand the
growing body of evidence concerning these risks. Agree or disagree, this
book will challenge your thinking and urge you to question how some
things in everyday life may be doing children more harm than good.’
– Trish O’Donnell, Development Manager, NSPCC
‘This book should find a place on the reading lists of all safeguarding
and children’s services workers. It moves away from the usual focus on
individual families and instead systematically examines the impact of
society-wide commercial pressures on children.’
– Dr Terry Murphy, Teesside University and
Social Work Action Network committee
‘Over 12 years of delivering Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB)
and single agency safeguarding training, I’ve found that attendees
always want to know a safeguarding professional’s opinions on the sorts
of dilemmas and issues discussed in this book. This is an accessible,
compelling and important book, and anyone involved in safeguarding
children should read it and be aware of these issues.’
– Jane O’Daly, Trust Safeguarding Lead, Derby Hospitals
NHS Foundation TrustExploiting Childhood
Exploiting
Childhood
How Fast Food, Material Obsession
and Porn Culture are Creating New Forms
of Child Abuse
Edited by Jim Wild
Forewords by Camila Batmanghelidjh
and Oliver James
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
First published in 2013
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
73 Collier Street
London N1 9BE, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2013
Foreword copyright © Camila Batmanghelidjh 2013
Foreword copyright © Oliver James 2013
Cover illustration copyright © Matt Kenyon (www.mattkenyon.co.uk) 2013
Chapter 7 copyright © Susie Orbach
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material
form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and
whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication)
without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms
of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10
Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owner’s written
permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the
publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may
result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Exploiting childhood : how fast food, material obsession and porn culture are
creating new forms of
child abuse / edited by Jim Wild ; forewords by Camila Batmanghelidjh and Oliver
James.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-84905-368-6
1. Child welfare. 2. Child abuse. 3. Children--Social conditions--21st century. I.
Wild, Jim, 1953-
HV713.E89 2014
362.76--dc23
2013026939
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 368 6
eISBN 978 0 85700 742 1
I would like to dedicate this book to a range of people, organisations
and critical thinkers who have raised the spectre of new challenges
in child protection.

Contents
Foreword 9
Camila Batmanghelidjh
Foreword 11
Oliver James
Acknowledgements 14
1
Introduction 17
Jim Wild
Part 1 Commercial Exploitation
2
Arguments, Bullies and Feeling Poor: How Consumer
Culture Affects Children’s Relationships 34
Professor Agnes Nairn
3
Child Obesity and the Junk Food Marketeers 49
Tim Lobstein
4
The Science of Violent Entertainment 65
Dr Wayne Warburton
5
Changing Childhoods: Nature Deficit 86
James Hawes
6
The Myth of Choice for Children and Parents:
Why We Deny the Harm Being Caused to
Our Children 98
Renata Salecl
Part 2 Sexual Exploitation
7
The Commercialisation of Girls’ Bodies 110
Susie Orbach
8
Grooming Our Girls: Hypersexualization of the Culture
as Child Sexual Abuse 116
Dr Gail Dines
9
The Internet: A Global Market for Child Sexual Abuse 130
Sharon Girling OBE
10
Sex, Sexuality and Child Sexual Abuse 145
Professor Liz Kelly CBE
11
Children, Childhood and Sexualised Popular Culture 149
Dr Maddy Coy
Part 3 Fighting Back Against
Commercial and Sexual Exploitation
12
Helping Children to Stand Up to Society: Critical
Challenges and Culture Jamming 164
Professor Stephen D. Brookfield
13
Still Waters in a Storm: The Power of
Collective Learning 178
Stephen Haff
14
Resisting the Charm of an All-consuming life?
Riots, Rebellion and Finding New Utopias for
Children and Young People 187
Dr Adam Barnard
15
Conclusion: A New Category of Child Abuse? 202
Jim Wild
List of Contributors 207
Subject Index 211
Author Index 220