Adam Barnard - Exploiting Childhood: How Fast Food, Material Obsession and Porn Culture Are Creatirburton

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. Childrens 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 childrens well-being.

Nigel Parton, Professor of Applied Childhood Studies, University of Huddersfield

Child protection is everyones 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 ODonnell, Development Manager, NSPCC

This book should find a place on the reading lists of all safeguarding and childrens 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, Ive found that attendees always want to know a safeguarding professionals 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 ODaly, 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

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, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owners 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.

Camila Batmanghelidjh

Oliver James

Jim Wild

Professor Agnes Nairn