ABSTRACT
There is a growing obsession on both sides of the Atlantic with what has been termed ‘the commercialization of childhood’. Ed Balls, UK Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, announced in his 2007 Children’s Plan: ‘[T]he Government will commission an independent assessment of the overall impact of the commercial world on children’s well-being … In particular, the assessment will
investigate particular areas where exposure to commercialism might be causing harm to children’ (DCSF 2007a: 45). The think-tank IPPR warned in its report Freedom’s Orphans:
Seven to eleven-year-olds are now worth nearly £20 million a year as consumers and have become an increasingly lucrative target audience for unscrupulous advertisers eager to harness their ‘pester power’ … Research shows that rising affluence has had a pernicious effect on young people. As society has become richer, the impact on youth society has been to increasingly draw young people into consumerism.
